Have Backpacks, are Travelling ...

The kids...

2011-04-30T09:54:00.003+10:00

Oscar and Ernie playing!

Why go around if you can go through??!!

Rule Britannia

2007-12-10T21:29:00.000+11:00

Last time we made it to London we managed to spend four days here, see Buckingham palace, complain about the weather and leave. This time I hoped things would go a little better, maybe we would see a little bit more. Do some touristy stuff, I don't really need to ingratiate myself into English culture, I did that last time (i.e. I complained about the weather and got drunk!!). Just touristy stuff was our plan. At some point in our life Melissah and I will work out that there is little point in us planning for anything! We managed to fit in some touristy stuff, saw London Bridge 3, saw Camden Markets and the Tate Britain (the list of stuff we didn't do is still longer) with Matt and Gem. Gem and Melissah did go see a musical (thankfully Gem was in town and I dodged a Wicked (Wizard of Oz Prequel) shaped bullet) but mainly we hung out amongst one of London's ethnic minorities, Australian's on working Visa's. To be quite honest it was probably more fun than going to the Tower of London or British museum but it wasn't part of the original plan. Typical of our luck we managed to be in London on the weekend when England knocked Australia out of the Rugby World Cup. Ouch. The worst part was you couldn't pretend to be a Kiwi either (it's easy you say fush instead fish) because they got beaten aswell. Although as a side note I noticed in the French side, Sebastien Chabal had joined the Allan Broadbent Appreciation Society and was wearing his long hair and beard with pride. His willingness to take my look to the world stage meant I had to take a few steps back on my critiscims of France and enjoy a little admiration for the man.

So when we left London on the Monday it was all smiles from me as we were headed to Cardiff. Now I know everyone out there thinks I exude cool, if you need your beer cooled quickly stand near me, I'm that cool. It's time to let you in on a little secret, I was excited to be heading to Cardiff not to see a little country side or for the Millennium stadium, I was excited because Dr Who and Torchwood are filmed in Cardiff. Now that I have said that I need you to stop and think back to that one cool thing I have done that you were there for. Thinking time begins now.... Did you find that memory? You still think I'm cool. So while Melissah worked, I got to get up every morning/early afternoon and strolled around Cardiff saying I remember that and that and that. Then you ask locals what they think and most of them couldn't care less. I spoke to one guy though and he reckons he's been in the background twice changing street lights. A massive claim to fame I would have thought. That's about all I really did in Cardiff. Melissah worked, I went all nerd and then we went to Belfast.

Cardiff - Capital of the "Who"niverse

When Melissah finally finished working (it was only three days or so but still!) we got back into backpacker mode. First off we left our comfortable bed and room service at the Holiday Inn and moved back into a room at a backpackers, then instead of going out for a meal at a restaurant where people come and serve you, we cooked a cheap tomato pasta. I didn't remember back packing being so difficult. You have 10 days off and it becomes the hardest thing in the world. So Belfast, what a mean history this place has. Seriously the centre of the city is perfect, nothing feels untoward at all. In fact you go anywhere in the city centre and you could be in any other European city. Step into the suburbs and things tell a different story. Everything here is so close to the surface I don't honestly think you could call it history yet. There are murials for Protestants who killed Catholics and Catholics who killed Protestants yet the more you see the less these religions have much to do with it. They say they are on the way to peace but I can't see there being a lasting peace when the kerbs on one side of the road are painted blue, red and white and on the other they are orange, green and white. It's like the bloods and the crips. Territories have been marked. A 15 metre high wall separating the two sides doesn't help even if you call it a "peace wall". A wall's a wall. They never work, look at Berlin or what about Palestine and Israel. It's not going to work for long. We went to Derry. That was a bit different to Belfast. That was the site of Bloody Sunday. Who knew U2 wrote about an actual event. They actually like U2 here by the way. I would have thought they would have tired of them a while back but it turns out they haven't. Anyway back on track. Derry just feels different. In Belfast, it seemed a bit tit for tat, the way it's remembered is a bit finger pointing and he said she said. In Derry though there's no blame assigned to anyone (well not that I saw, and I had my eyes open for it!), they have chosen to remember it as civil rights struggle. So it was a little bit more about how the whole thing began rather than the whole tit for tat thing that Belfast was. It was a pretty tough day though. We spoke to an Irish lady there who was there on the Sunday and she took us to the point where she was and told us the shit she saw go down. But that's her story and it's not mine to tell; so if you ever go let me know and I'll tell you how to find her and hear it for yourself!

Northern Ireland, Deep Place if you can understand a word they're saying

We hired a car while we were in Ireland and drove down to Dublin via everywhere else on the way. We hummed and ahhed about getting "no excess" put on the car in the end we decided to add for the extra 15 pounds it was worth as on the last day there was "an incident"! So we went to Galway looking for Fitzgerald memorabilia. Unfortunately we found that we were looking in the wrong place according to all the literature we found the FitzGerald name is originally French and that pleased Melissah like you wouldn't believe. We eventually found one tiny piece of paper that said FitzGerald was German not French so she bought that one. It doesn't matter though because I know the truth. Then we spent a whole day taking photos of shops with FitzGerald on the door. I don't know if anyone has heard of this but go with me, during the National Socialist rule of Germany a forest worker outside of Berlin was planting a forest and in the midst of it using a different tree (the leaves go brown much earlier than the rest of the forest) he planted a giant swastika. So now day's during Autumn you can see this massive swastika from the air. (They have tried to remove but it grows back apparently) Well anyway the only other highlight from Galway was that someone had used the same theory but instead of an evil swastika it was massive Celtic rings. Following Galway we travelled down to Cork and by extension Blarney Castle. It was at this point we remembered we aren't really tourists. Well not at this point, when we reached the top of Blarney Castle and had to lean backwards over the edge kiss a stone that the locals apparently piss on at night, then they take the photo and sell it back to you for €10. Sorry buddy. It's not happening here. We left, shaking our head and working out what idiots pay the money for the photo. My theory, the same idiots that pose holding up the "Leaning Tower of Pisa".

So onwards to Dublin, hoping to put as much distance between us and the fools that pay that kind of money for a photo. So we went to Dublin to walk the streets of Temple Bar and hit the Guiness Factory. Of the two, the Guiness factory was my favourite. You walk around this huge part of the old factory, learn how the process goes and then when you get to the very top you get a pint of Guiness to enjoy while you look out over Dublin. Have to say it is worth doing. The most surprising part was that I was looking forward to my pint and then drinking Melissah's but due to it's freshness and lightness and smoother taste at the factory, Melissah was selfish and drank hers all on her own. I was left with just one drink. An Australian guy up there was befriending anyone who didn't like their beer and was taking it off them. He wasn't that drunk when we left but he was going to be! I'm pretty sure that's how we get our bad name/good name. The BEST part of Dublin though was the deal we got on car parking. We left a car in a U Park type place for two or three nights and only paid €26. What a steal. It's an insight into what is thrilling us at the moment when a savings of €50 makes the highlights. When you watch your back account drain away before your very eyes any small monetary victory is worth a lap of honour.

The Republic of Ireland, a whole week making people say "Ahh Potatoes"

In Belfast we returned a slightly damaged rental car, Melissah is insisting it was me but I think the car was a little starved of attention and decided to hurt itself to get our attention. Anyway we returned it and I hope it's gone off to get the attention we couldn't give it. We then flew back to the UK, merely to get on a flight to Turkey. When we arrived we jumped in a cab and asked to be taken to London Road in Luton. Simple task, it's a major road. Our crafty taxi driver decided that by London Road we meant London and proceeded to the highway. We were on to him and his crafty ways though. Don't know what it is at the moment but people are really trying to take advantage of our good natured and relaxed ways. Good thing we are going to Turkey now, no one will take advantage of us there!

The Unfinished Spanish Galleon

2007-11-29T03:04:00.000+11:00

Where did we leave this story kids? Were we up to the part where I slayed the dragon and rode off into the sun with the now rescued Melissah over my shoulder? No.. Well that will give you something to look forward to. We arrived in Spain after the disaster that was a two night stop over in France. We have (in Allan and Melissah world) officially declared the area between Germany and Spain an ocean. It hasn't been named yet but expect it sound something like the Aglio or Knoblauch Ocean. Check the photos for this new world order. By the way Monaco is now an Island, we tripled its coast line. Once again I have wandered off topic, I can tell when this happens because Melissah tuts very loudly over my shoulder as she reads it.

So we arrived in Spain, well Barcelona to be accurate. Were we in a good mood? Not particularly. We were in any type of mood to deal with idiots? Not really. Is patience a virtue Melissah and I have been naturally blessed with? I think that's a no. We get off the metro near the hostel, at this point we had travelled 14 hours from Paris, overnight and thus breaking the rule of no more overnight trains! Surprisingly though I did happen to learn from my past mistakes and did stay off the turps, although this was made easy due to the fact the train didn't have a resturant car. All I wanted was a nice paella, a beer and a nap or if I couldn't have those a shower would have done. So we are walking through the streets near the hostel and a spanish guy walks up to us and says "'Scuse me, can you direct me to X station (I use X because I can't remember it's bloody name)". Now this was a little odd because you could see the station from where we were standing. Have you got how this looks, 2 very tired and dishevelled travellers with full packs and no patience and 1 denim clad idiot with so much grease in his hair that wrestlers were forming an orderly que behind him in order to lube up before their next match.

Then out of the alley way came two more idiots. Short fat idiot and quiet creepy idiot. So now its 2 tired, increasingly grumpy travellers and 3 idiots. The short fat one said he was some sort of police officer, flashed some id and asked to see some id from the two of us and the denim clad idiot. The greasy one took out his wallet and showed him an "id". I happened to be standing very close to the gentleman and he only showed a banckcard, no id. Anybody else smell something fishy? Then he asked for our passports, I suggested to Melissah it was time for us to leave. Melissah on the other hand had decided that she had had enough of people trying to rip us off and steal our shit. She demanded to see the guys ID again. When he showed it she laughed and told him it was fake. Then asked to see the other guy's (the creepy one who said nothing but just stood there the whole time) ID. they said you don't need to see it, Melissah insisted somewhat forcefully that she did need to see it. Short fat one realised that he wasn't going to win this one so they turned and all three of them walked away together talking to each other. Even though she had successfully prevented us getting more shit stolen Melissah had turned, well I like to call it "Volcano red". Not happy that someone had decided we were fair game 3 days after someone else decided we were fair game, unleashed a stream of unlady like words directed at karma, fate and whatever god happened to be listening. I felt happy I wasn't included in the group.

Luckily for Barcelona, this didn't tarnish the time we had there. We stayed in a tiny little hostel, which nightly turned into a very twisted soap opera using all the guests except Melissah and I. While in Barcelona, a dear old friend of Melissah and I (everything else I wrote as an introduction was censored so much that it lost it's funny) Chuck came to meet up with us. Rebecca (as she was christened or so she claims) had the pleasure of following us around for the first day while we decided to replace shit that was stolen, like the camera and ipod. Having Chuck around was like having a child around. No Chuck, you can't touch the policeman. Chuck, get away from those French boys clothes. Don't smell them, Melissah, she wont listen to me make her stop sniffing their underwear (ok so it was shirt but it was still disturbing). So for those of you that think Baiden put mine and Melissah's desire to be parents back a little bit. Chuck pushed them back even further! Once the camera and ipod were purchased the three or four days we were there whizzed along. There were highlights, going to the Nou Camp to watch Barcelona win 4-1, watching a pom throw up into the bin in our dorm, the discreet pleasure in knowing a girl wet her pants while drinking with the poms and all she did was change her pants (no shower) but she thought no one knew. Guess what? We knew!! That was hilarious, if nothing else had happened except for pee girl it would have been worth going for. For those that are asking, it wasn't Chuck. Melissah on the other hand, well you can never trust the quiet ones.

Barcelona... Spanish is harder than you think

When we put Chuck on the bus to the airport, we made our way to Bilbao. We stayed at a beautiful place on the hill overlooking the city, amazing views, fantastic room, brilliant shower. One of the best places we have stayed except for one small flaw. It's in the middle of no where, it's a good half an hour walk down the hill (if you can find the right path) and going up well its a nightmare. It's designed for those with a vehicle not those of us with a reliance on public transport. Aside from that small issue Bilbao is nice, if only for one reason. Melissah found her sunglasses, same shape, same model, same colour. Why is this a big thing? Well before we left Australia Melissah would have tried on at a low estimate 2000 pairs of glasses and found 1, only 1 pair that she even considered buying. Then they went missing. So what have we done since? Gone into every sunglasses shop looking for that one pair. There was to be no negotiation, that was the only pair that was an acceptable replacement "like for exact" if you will. It was becoming a loosing battle, 35 sunglasses shops not even a hint of the right pair and then lucky number 36, one pair on special, the exact pair. Hallelujah. So Bilbao is remembered for being pretty and saving me another three months of walking into sunglasses shops and hearing "hmpf, they don't have them. Lets go." Make sure you add the sad face with the puppy dog eyes as you read it and then you'll understand!

Bilbao ... should change its name to Guggenheim

From Bilbao to the UK. This should actually read from Bilbao to UK passport control (because it's basically a stop over on its own) and then to the UK.

Not Forgiven or Forgotten

2007-11-20T07:20:00.000+11:00

It's been a while hasn't it? No updates. Your sitting at home thinking geez, they must really like Milan because they have been there for ages. Well we haven't, we moved on and I haven't told you about it. Did that sting a little? It was meant to. The reason I haven't told you is not because I am fundamentally lazy and have an innaiint ability not to finish anything I start but because you cheated on me.

That's right I've caught you all out. Don't play coy with me, you know how you cheated on me. Facebook. Did you think I wouldn't find out? I expected more from you. Maybe some patience, but NO you don't get an update in a couple of days and it's onto Facebook to check on Mel's page. You do it once or twice and then soon enough this page is like your safety partner. You know that person who you don't really like but in the middle of a dry spell it's better than nothing. Well that's how it is. Now all you do is check Facebook, look at the pictures and then one day when you can't get onto Youtube (it still exists not that you would know because you're wasting so much time on Facebook) you'll come here looking for entertainment. I hope when you eventually read this (say Jan 2008 when social networking sites are banned in the workplace) you'll feel dirty.

That's how it is and that is how I was going to leave it. A dirty note on the bedside table saying I know you cheated, I am leaving with the cat and the hibiscus to stay at my parents for a while, hopefully you do the right thing and leave while I'm gone. (When I get a metaphor I really like to work it, sometimes so much so i back myself into a corner and can't get out of it!) But here's the thing, it's my birthday in a couple of days and instead of "growing up and getting over myself" as Melissah has suggested, I am just going to accept your apology and will forgive you at a later date when you make it up to me fully or never forgive you and use it as leverage to win every argument we have in the future. That is until you do something worse and I can use that. Here endeth the metaphor, normal blogging continues below.

So we just left Romania, there's been a few places between Milan and here but I thought I should mention one of my favourite activities before we move on. We left Romania for good and we had an odd amount of Lei left in our possession, enough Lei to not want to carry it around but not nearly enough to exchange for the next currency. So what do you do? Well I go to the nearest snack shop and spend as much as I can on useless local food. Melissah got a pack of cheesy puffs that weren't so cheesy and I got probably the greatest snack food on the planet. It is up there to rival BBQ Shapes for my favourite snack of all time. A bag of bruschetta type bread flavoured with garlic. Oh Happy Days. These are the adventures you have when spending the last of your currency. (I wouldn't do this with the pound though, I would return home with 10 quid and try and buy Tasmania.) Before Romania there was Italy, in fact much before Romania there was Italy. I've written about Milan haven't I ? (Shows how long this has been! Shame on you!). (Mels note: actually I wrote about Milan, which makes it a good 2 months since Al wrote anything!!) Well after Milan we went to

Florence

Florence - Otherwise known as Davids House

Then Rome

Roma - Nero Fiddled while Rome was built in a day..

then Naples

PICTURE MISSING

then back to Florence

Florence - Otherwise known as Davids House

...then we left Italy. Simple really. I could catch this blog up by just listing places and linking the albums. But I am not going to make it easy on you. I don't think I've ever made it easy for you. I want to tell you about all the things we did in Italy, about the food and the COFFEE. About the queues to get in everywhere, the disappointment of most art and the pleasure at seeing people removed from a room because they took a photo when they weren't supposed to (a bonus for those of us that follow the rules!). Unfortunately due to the fact I am connected to the internet while I am writing makes it hard to tell you about all the things I liked because I happen to be reading about the upcoming Federal Election at home and it reminds me of the things I don't like.. For example (this list could be quite long)

I was going to tell you all about Rome and how I saw the Pope, but he just reminds me about John and his Letters to the Exclusive Brethren (sounds like a book of the New Testament) and our very own moral crusaders Family (def. - A Man and woman legally married not any other combination i.e. Man and Man, Woman and Woman, Man and Donkey) First. Or how I saw the leaning tower of Pisa but it just reminded me of a massive penis and it takes no stretch as to what ironically named group of people (you could call them a Party even) it reminded me of. As an apolitical side Pisa drove me nuts. Why what could possibly make you angry in Pisa? Stupid people pretending to hold the bloody thing up or push it over. What an annoying bunch of wankers they were (also reminded me of the Ironically Named Party). Seriously though have you ever seen anything more stupid than a bus load of tourists standing 50m in front of a tower (that should have been ripped down) pretending to hold it up? It's not funny, I don't want to see your photos. Do you know when it was funny? Once when someone 100 years ago took a box brownie camera to Pisa and had some bird with a parasol pretend to hold it up. Why was it funny then? Because it was original. I'll say this once and in capitals "YOU ARE NOT FUNNY. IT IS NOT ORIGINAL. NO ONE WNATS TO SEE IT". Cop that bitches. We went to Florence which was brilliant but every second person was American which wasn't so bad then but thinking back now it just reminds me of one person (you can see how this going to play out can't you). I have more references but in this day and age (what with my popularity and all) with media monitors and the likes I probably cant print them. Some of you are thinking thank God, some of you are disappointed and the rest of you are trying to work out whether I just ran out of segues. Looking at our journey through Italy it does parallel a series of events quite well, children overboard, interest rate rises, AWA's, War in Iraq, my foot blowing up to the size of my thigh and the withholding of information to the press. Quite an impressive resume to have for just three weeks through Italy.

Avignon comes next, we travelled 14 hours from Florence to Avignon and from there it was to be a relatively simple journey to Barcelona. Unfortunately as it is with all travel things are not that simple. We have no photographs of Avignon or Pompeii or Naples. You must be wondering why? Why? Well because some fucker (I have toned this language down somewhat but cannot bring myself to censor it completely) stole one of our day packs with the camera in it. Thus when we arrived in Avignon we had lost Melissah's purse, ipod, reading glasses, sunglasses, camera, postcards (written with stamps)) and documents (not important ones but still copies of our passport, insurance and suite measurements. you know inside pant length and the likes). But worse than all of that we had to rely on the French to help us. This didn't start so bad (but deteriorated quickly), the French policeman who helped us to file a report was helpful and sympathetic and nice. He learnt English 30 years ago, but tried his heart out even went as far as to point at different colour binders on his shelf to get the right colours. He tried and he didn't make us feel like we were ignorant tourists. We almost had a little hope, until he said in flat English "Your bag. It will NOT turn up". Way to crush that optimism. Aside from that we left there thinking this isn't going to be so bad. We are going to get through this nicely. We had been told that sometimes bags can get left on the trains by those who take them (without the valuable stuff in them obviously) so we should contact lost and found in Paris to see if anything had turned up (mainly Mel's reading glasses, I mean what are the chances of a thief knowing someone with same wonky eyes as Melissah). Easy enough, we asked the man at the train station (with the I speak English badge on) can he contact lost and found. The simple answer (and only English word and it wasn't even English was) "No". So we rang ourselves, there was an answering machine with a message. Undestanbly it was in French, so we went to another worker at the train station. Could he tell us what the message says, we don't speak French. His response was not "Sure, I am here to help as it says in my job description to provide assistance to paying customers of French rail" as would be normal. His response was "You are in France we speak French" . Still doesn't tell me what's on the answering machine dickhead. At this point I have decided to learn French fluently in the vein hope that when I am back in Australia someone asks me for help in French and I clearly understand what they want I can say "You are in Australia, learn to speak English" and walk away knowing that I have exacted my revenge. When we finally worked out what was happening instead of that nice easy train ride to Spain from Avignon it was Spain via Paris. Look on a map it's not ideal.

As a note, the postcards turned up. The thief posted them. Didn't send the memory stick with the photos on it though.

Shopping paradise!

2007-09-30T06:52:00.003+10:00

If you enjoy shopping like me, Milan is definitely somewhere you want to head with a purse full of money ... if, like Allan, shopping isn't your thing ... personally I wouldn't waste my time or money with a trip to Milan.

We only booked a couple of nights in Milan, because the cheapest place we could find to stay was double our nightly budget. Milan doesn't do backpackers or hostels, I don't think they want backpackers there wasting space. Or maybe it's just that back packers simply can't afford to go to Milan ... either way, we almost spent our weeks budget in the 2 days we were there!

There weren't too many sights to see in Milan, there is the big church with its 5000 spires and something like 7000 statues. We paparazzied the church and then moved on to shopping. While we were shopping, we found a few statues that looked like they were made out of chocolate and I think are characters from a cartoon or something, they kept Al amused while I darted in and out of the shops!!

Personally I didn't mind our time in Milan, I was well overdue for some shopping, even if it was mainly window shopping. I window shopped in all of the big designer stores ... more because I simply can not understand how anyone could waste so much money on clothing and accessories. I think they should go to Africa for a holiday and see if they can work out where their money is better spent .. anyhow, not going to do an Allan rant, just thought it was worth mentioning. I did however do some shopping in what is known as the "golden quarter", which is mainly big designers and a few chain stores ... I found a store that just sold ladies shirts ... Literally there were maybe 15 different types of shirts, I went in and pointed out the two that I liked, they bought back the size and colour that they thought and I thought I was in paradise :) Not only was someone fussing over me to find me what I wanted, but I was also in a shop that only sold business shirts for ladies ... I have been saying for a very long time that stores like this should exist, would make shopping for work clothes so much easier .. and it turns out that they do!! Now all I need to do is find a store that only sells women's suits and i'll be a happy chappy!! At the time of purchasing my shirts right next to the Luis Vuton, Gucci and Prada stores I thought I'd walked into a designer store, but as we walked down the block and past 3 more of these stores, I'm pretty certain that it was more than likely a chain store across Europe, but hey, it made me feel good at the time!!

Bored out of our brains, we got an early train the next day to Florence ...

Nice is nice ...

2007-09-30T06:52:00.001+10:00

Once again, Al is way behind at the blog, so I'm doing a few small "fill ins" to help him on his way!

So after the week taking it easy at the Villa, we made our way to Nice ... couldn't give you one good reason that we went to Nice, pretty much we knew that the Villa was in the middle of no where and that we would have to ask very nicely for a lift to the nearest train station of people that we had never met before, so we just chose somewhere that was easy to get to from most places in the south of France! Although the reasoning for going was perhaps not exactly thought through, our two nights in Nice were some of the best we've had on our trip so far. There is nothing really to see, and nothing in particular to do in Nice, it's just a wonderful little sea side town right next to Monaco!

So the first night we got to Nice, we decided to go for a walk along the sea to see what we could see see see!! The first thing we noticed, was that Nice had a pebble beach, not sand as we would have assumed. At first, we thought this was a bad thing, but after one swim the next day, and the COMPLETE lack of sand anywhere, we were sold. The difference while you're at the beach is not so much, but when you get home and there's no sand in your underwear, no sand all over your towel and no sand through your hair, you realise that the pebble beach is the greatest thing since sliced bread! The other strange thing about the beach is that you literally only have to go out about 2 metres before you're up to your neck in water, and at 3 metres you can't touch. It was kind of like being at a really salty swimming pool!! Right next to where we were swimming they were doing that thing where you have a parachute and a sort of swing that gets pulled along by a boat. They were actually taking off from the beach and then bringing them back in about 5 metres from shore. The water was so deep that it was ok for someone to take a plunge from the air to the sea without hurting themselves. Every time we were closing our eyes thinking someone was going to lose their legs.

Anyhow, I'm off track. The beach at Nice has a massive boardwalk that goes the entire length of the beach (kilometers and kilometers) and is probably about 6 or 7 meters wide. There were thousands of people walking, riding, jogging and roller blading up and down the beach, it was kind of like those American teen movies ... complete with the scantily clad girls ... so we decided that the next day we would hire some roller blades. It cost us about $10 to hire a set for 24 hours, which meant we could pretty much use them all day and night and take them back before we got on the train the next day. (We thought this was an absolute bargain! Especially after being in Paris where a coffee costs you $7 or 8) We were watching all these obvious tourists with their helmets and knee and elbow pads looking like absolute idiots trying to use the roller blades that they'd hired. Now for anyone who went through the roller blades craze as a kid, like we both did, I bet you're thinking like we did, that roller blading is just like riding a bike, we'd be able to hire a pair, and we'd be as good as we were when we were kids ... right?? We ticked the "no helmet and padding" option when we hired the roller-blades with that exact thought in mind ... we definitely didn't want to look like amateurs! So we put on the roller blades, and confidently stood up, only to fall straight back down on the ground ... no worries, just teething problems ... two hours later, I still hadn't worked out how exactly the brakes worked, so was literally going from flower bed to flower bed and Al, a little more confident was trying to learn how to not look like an idiot on wheels!! After a few hours, we'd had enough, so decided to make our way home through the main shopping street, I obviously had no where near enough confidence to wear the roller blades home, however Allan decided he was that good. Amusingly, the first pedestrian that we saw, Al thought it would be a great idea to get off of the footpath and onto the road, completely misjudged the jump off of the curb and literally face planted onto the road. The poor guy that we were passing didn't know where to look and whether to help him up, I, on the other hand was almost rolling around on the ground I was laughing so much, at which point the other guy realised that it was o.k. to laugh and we both stood there laughing at poor Al trying to drag himself out of the gutter ... Al then admitted defeat, took the blades off and we walked home!! Over the next day, Al definitely got much better at the sport of roller blading and was certainly confident enough not to look like an idiot. I on the other hand, not so much, but at least could turn corners, break to a certain degree as well as do a nice turning trick :) We're definitely hiring roller-blades again the next time we see them!! Maybe we'll even buy some when we get home!!

There really isn't much else to tell about Nice ... it's absolutely beautiful, we had a great time and I think would definitely go back next time we're in Europe. Seeing as we had the roller-blades on the majority of the time we were there, we didn't take a single photo of Nice ... how very clever of us!!

Our holiday from our holiday ...

2007-09-30T06:45:00.000+10:00

So we were supposed to be having a week off. A holiday form our holiday if you will. Unfortunately acording to Melissah (who is currently standing behind me with a baseball bat swining it about menacingly .... Please don't hurt me, I'll delete it i promise..) the blog doesn't get to rest!

Our holiday started off, the way Allan and Melissah holidays start off. We arrange to meet people in the town of Montpilier, get there 4 hours early because we are organised (Melissah organises me, therefore I am organised. Simple.) and then things go pear shaped. What a surprise. The train station at Montpillier is having work done at its baggage check so we can't dump our backpacks. So we have coffee at a bar in the train station and wait. 5 hours later we get a call from Em to find out where we are in Carcassone. Where the fuck is Carcossone? Well it's a further 2 hours down the road. There is one train left that goes in that direction and we have to wait an hour to get on! Somewhere on this trip we have managed to pick up some atrocious luck. Must have been that lephracheun I kicked when him and his little black cat crossed my path under a ladder. Anyway, we met Em and TG half way between to pick us up and we were in the house before dark which was not what I was expecting. I had visions of us sleeping in a railway station or in amongst some grape vines with a village farmer chasing us because he thought we were eating his precious grapes. This is a dangerous thing too, we saw a farmer standing in amongst his vines with a shot gun.

So here we are in wine country. In a village of a few hundred. No McDonalds, no 7-11 in fact, no corner store. They have a bread van, someone drives a van around full of baguettes and flutes, crossaints and chocolate croissants. Joy amongst joy. I wish people would come to my house with food, instead of walking across the road to the supermarket. The only drawback, and this is a slight drawback, someone has to wake up to meet it otherwise they drive away and you're left with naught but the crumbs of yesterdays 12 loaves that you bought because it's cheap like the budgie.

So what did you do? Well in all honesty not a great deal. There was a pool, there were Uno cards and there were board games and there was alchol. Some people went wine tasting. An exercise which I managed to avoid until the very last day. Why do I try and avoid it? Well those that know me know my liking for wine extends as far as a goon bag of fruity lexia, so tasting wine really isn't my strongest ability and this is the worst part, anytime I like the smallest bit of wine Melissah buys a barrel of the stuff (OWWWWW she hit me...). Ok a bottle, but now there's an added pressure on me to like more wine. I don't handle it! Plus there's something about wine tasting that makes me laugh. Can I taste the oak? No I can't but if i go outside and lick that tree I am pretty sure i'll be able to. It's really fruity isn't it? That's because its made from grapes, orange juice is fruity too!! Has good legs? No it doesn't it leaves a residue on the glass. This is not a valid reason for buying a wine. I am convinced wine tatser courses were designed buy a couple of blokes who were shunned by the world because of their social awkwardness so they invented wine tatsting as a way to make normal and extremely likeable people behave like fools for fifteen minutes in a winery. I'd like also like to point out that wine makers aren't magicians what they do isn't some black magic, it's science.

The rest of the week I spent gaining weight by eating as much as I possibly could (we're backpacking so real food could be long way away!) and drinking as much beer as I could while moving as little as I could. Unfortunately at some point my intake may have gotten a little much as the chair I was sitting on collapsed under my new girth. Fortunately my newly acquired fat arse prevented me from feeling the pain of hitting the deck. As the week drew to a close, we parted ways, Melissah, Tim (who works to his own world time) and I went to Bezeirs to catch our respective trains. The other 6 headed back to London weighed down by what would have to amount to two wineries and half a distillery loaded into the back of their two cars. What a fun week, slaps on the back all round. DIdn't we have fun? Jolly Good Show. All that kind of thing. Do it again? Hear Hear!

Then comes the fun stuff. Later that week an email gets sent, the deposit will not be returned due to the damage inflicted on the house. The colour drained from my face. Was my fat arse to be blamed for loosing all that bond. Surely one chair couldn't be worth that much. Maybe their first born was conceived in that chair which is why they go to great lengths to keep it in working order. If that was the case the chair should come with a warning and maybe a plastic covering. It isn't that simple. This would be easy compared to the accusations that returned! Apparently someone had urinated on a bed so badly it overflowed onto the floor. How the hell did it happen? I don't recall any occasion when we decide en masse to crowd into one room and urinate on a mattress. I am pretty sure that no one there was a fan of golden showers (it's the kind of thing that comes up in conversation. For example "Hi, my names Graham." Hi Graham, I'm Al. "Sweet Al thats a cool name." I know, that's because it's mine. "Do you want something to eat Al?" No thanks Graham I had some food before.. "That's ok, I like Golden Showers." I have to go now graham. "Ok. Bye Al." See it would come up in conversation. Anyway people like Graham who are into Golden Showers generally know that the bathtub or on a tarp in the backyard are the cleanest way to go. No mess no fuss. Yet the accusation has been leveled and we are standing by each other (even though one of us could be a dirty perve or have massive bladder malfunctions). Looking at our group though I know who all eyes are being leveled at, 8 young professionals who put on suits and go to work each day to make a difference in the world (or their bank account) and 1 dirty tradesman who doesn't shave and wears the same clothes everyday.

So we're off to court. I suggest our defense be "How much damage can urine really do? After all it's sterile!"

Robert Louis Stevensons dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.... subtitled Paris.

2007-09-25T23:43:00.000+10:00

Ok. It's true, I am a smidge behind on this blog. But it's not my fault. Blame Paris (not the heiress). I just can't seem to sum it up, can't find the right words to express my feelings for this city. Well I can find the right words, but they don't go together well. It's an awful city punctuated by spots of inspiration half the time and the other half it's an amazing place with a light rain of pretension and arrogance. I have tried to explain this duality, the Jekyll and Hyde that I found Paris, to be but it comes across all wrong, like asking Britney Spears to baby sit. You're happy about it, but there's always a nagging feeling that somethings not quite right.

So blame Paris, I do. It's meant that every time I have tried to write this blog (for you, my people) I have found it unpalatable. I tried hard to write a nice blog giving the thumbs up but when I did that all I really wanted to do was be mean and cruel. I tried to write a blog all mean and cruel, just pour the cynicism over Paris like some gateaux over an already sweet cake but just like the cake, Paris is delicious in tiny servings. I can't write a day by day account of what we did due to my June 2002 diatribe/rant/slander against people who keep day by day diaries. I tried to write a cohesive report on our time in Paris using nothing but quotes from Gerard Depardieu but since I have refused to watch any of his films since Green Card in the 1990's it was went untouched after the opening line. Where does that leave me? Using quotes from films by Marcel Marceau? Writing the blog in purely existential form? I must admit I don't know enough about satre to try it, but I did think about it. What stereo types are left? Not many that wont have me in the courts....

So I have come up with what I feel is a Parisian way to solve the problem. Some people will call it lazy and an abomination of the written word. Derivative and unimaginative . Some will hail hail it as a triumph of modernism and maybe even suggest I should be paid per word you read. Adventurous and inventive. In a very Parisian way I hope you hate it, in the vein hope you will stop coming but with the resigned knowledge that people love it and will continue to flock there (here) anyway. Thus it begins...

P is for Pride and Petulance (it could have Parisian but I had already pre-empted the use of that word). There is an enormous sense of Pride in the way the locals treat their city. They guard what they think is special and try to keep the tourists away. Refusal to speak anything but French when you know as well as they do that they speak 6 languages, it makes me laugh when they fail. Melissah bought a phone card this is how the conversation went ...

Melissah "Parlez-vous Anglais?" (do you speak English, in her best French accent)

Attendant "NO"

Melissah "Ahhhh, ummmm, Un Telefone card? Australie"

Attendant hands her the card and says "7.50 thank you.."... in an almost australian accent

LIAR... Their civic pride extends beyond just keeping the tourists away. The police hunt down anyone on the side of the street selling illegal wares (think hand bags, roses, glowing Eiffel Towers, paintings of Eiffel Towers.) Incidentally Melissah bought a picture of the Eiffel tower 8 years ago and you can still get the same print. Why do the police hunt these people down? Not because they are selling illegal merchandise, nor because they don't have the required paperwork allowing them to sell things on the street. They do it because they cause tourists to continue to gather on the streets. Well that's what I believe anyway and it's a good theory. Yet all these senses of civic pride, statements like (put on a French accent for this) "The pyramids at the Louvre are ugly and awful but they are in Paris so that makes them more beautiful than anywhere else in the world" (Anon) could also be seen as the behaviour of a petulant school boy. When walking the streets of Paris it often seems like you have either been last picked in a sports game (this never happened to me but I understand that there is the feeling of being a leper that goes with it) or someone else has taken the ball and gone home. Just depends which side of the bed you get up on is how you see Paris.

A is for Art. It's also for Acquired. Why Acquired? Well it's the polite way for a museum to say "we nicked it from another country a few hundred years ago (thank you Napoleon)" I am assuming it's legal speak so they don't have to give stuff back. Listening to the Audio guide (that's another A) in the Louvre and they just say "this was acquired on X date and has been here ever since". I want the truth. I want to hear that Napoleon pinched it for his bedroom but it wouldn't fit on the wall, so they tucked it away in a pantry for 30 years then remembered it was there and hung it up. This exact story didn't happen but wouldn't life be better if it did. I think museums around the world (mainly Europe and Egypt) should set up wings of museums with display cases and pedestals and a small inscription saying "this is where we would display the such and such by what's his name but unfortunately it was Acquired by King Louis XVII who took it when our King went out of the room to make a cup of tea. It is now shown in the Louvre in their Acquired Art Wing. Have a pleasant time walking through our Hall of Absenteeism". I am probably showing my ignorance of century old agreements between curators and museums and other such things but really if they just told the complete stories I'd be satisfied! Art, that was the other thing I decided to go with for the letter A. I just don't like a lot of art. I am interested in art, desperate to learn about it, trying to find out what I am missing with some of this stuff but often I am left high and dry while those around me carry on their merry way! Take the Mona Lisa... I stood in front of it, I stood to the side of it, I turned my back on it and looked over my shoulder at it and I stood on the other side of the wall to it. It did nothing for me. I was more interested in the throngs of people and I mean throngs of people desperate for their shot. Holding their camera up in the crowd and just hoping they hit the button at the right time. I watched this mob to and fro and wondered if half of them knew why they were breathing the hair of the person in front of them or whether they were just ticking a box. As I heard one of the tourists say "Lets just take a photo of this thing so we can get out of here!". So I ask, is the reason that the Mona Lisa is so famous because she is by DaVinci and there is some fantastic art terms associated with it that are too complex for me? Or is it because the art world needed a flagship piece (it's the Nike Swish or the golden arches of the Louvre) and this is a nice non religious simple piece with a big name behind it? A reason for the "normal" people to go in to the Louvre to begin with, get them off the streets of Paris shuffle them into one room and ship them out again several Euro shorter after buying all the merchandise with the Mona Lisa on it. Is the Mona Lisa Art or Advertising?

R is for Romance... I say this without my tongue placed in my cheek. It is a romantic place. You walk around the city and you can't help but be taken by the wave of romanticism that flows through the streets of Paris. Everything is tinged pink if you will. Rouge (another R because I can) even. There is no avoiding it. Out for a meal, the first meal you have paid for in a while and you drop your fork because you were surprised it wasn't plastic. You bend down to pick it up and when your head reappears above the table the restaurant has got 3 violinists, a cellist and a stylishly dressed accordion player all standing at your table playing a soulful tune. All 5 of them, the maitre de, your waiter, the chef all looking in your direction with eyebrows raised waiting for the romance to explode out of you after all they have set the scene it's now up to you. You walk to the Eiffel Tower at night (where else do you go? it dominates the skyline) you get there and it's all lit up glowing orange. At the base people are walking around with long stemmed red roses, violinists are playing, the river is lit. Once again the city of Paris has set the scene, it's over to you. How many people have got down on bended knee and proposed just because of the spirit Paris invokes? Further to that how many people have said no because they see that other half of Paris, the Reality. It's simple things, little things but they add up after a while. You're out on your romantic walk before dinner, you walk towards the Louvre and take a turn one street too early and you've taken your young love into brothel town. Now when a lady is all smitten with romance, nothing takes it away quicker than a hooker asking her man if he fancies "a piece of ass" in front of her. You have to work hard just to get back on a level playing field. You go out to eat. No complaints about the meals after all we are in Paris and even a shit chef is still pretty good, we have already touched on the non existent service but you accept it in the face of a good meal. So you're doing pretty well. Then comes the bill. It's not the price of the food, nor the waiter adding on a tip that shock you. It's the other charges. A cover charge for a shitty accordion player in an ill fitting tux. They provide the scene but god forbid it be out of some civic pride to maintain the image of a romantic city, they have taken advantage of their reputation and are squeezing every last tourist dollar out of it. So you bite your tongue, and leave. Whisking your lady away towards that phallic symbol Paris revolves around the tower. Standing underneath you get given a rose, thank you. Unfortunately these roses aren't gifts but a way to once again lever some money out of a tourist by trading on Paris reputation. What do you do? Give it back you look like a prick not wanting to give your lady a rose? Keep it and you've been screwed out 5 bucks for a shitty rose. I gave it back. So you stand there and soak up the scene arms around each other, you're recovering getting that sense back. Then behind you you hear "Excuse me. Do you speak English". This is the calling card of what I am calling the Pyramid begging scheme. We have encountered it in Germany, Belgium and Paris. Generally it's a couple of ladies with kids, they come up to you and ask do you speak English? If you say yes they show you a note explaining that they are homeless from Bosnia and need money and hold out their hand. I felt sorry the first time, even the second. Then in Paris I couldn't believe my eyes. Thousands of tourists under the Eiffel tower a mini van pulls up on the road behind and 10 women hop out laughing. In each of their hands is the "note" they show and they split up in the crowd. Walking through the crowd in the next ten minutes they were asking everyone "Do you speak English?" Sympathy gone...... So where was I? That's right arms around each other, that sense of romance filling the body back up. Then you hear "Excuse Me. Do You Speak English?" You look at each other and say "Dammit I lost it. Lets Go home."

I is for Invaluable. Before I go on I want to clarify my use of the word invaluable. At some point in the past someone somewhere corrupted the use of the word invaluable from something that couldn't be valued at all, to mean something that was so valuable there wasn't a price tag for it. This means at some point things like the air you breathe, the sun shine and mud on your shoes were also considered invaluable. In the case of Paris I have decided to allow for use of both applications for the word invaluable. This is me drawing a loose bow an you will se why. What would the price tag be for the actual Eiffel Tower? How about a Notre Damn, recently repaired? What about the Louvre? Could you give me an estimate of what you would pay for the Arc De Triumph (For Sale. One Large Arch slightly worn. Looking for good home in the sunshine.)? You couldn't put a price on them. But at some point they have lost their worth and become invaluable, they have become empty vessels, worthless to anyone because they have lost their meaning. Not because of what hey represent but because of the plague of tourists that swarm all over them like locusts travelling from one farm to the next. No one comes for adventure anymore, tick box tourism is being allowed to thrive in Paris. Why is this Paris fault? Well they have the chance to say enough is enough. They could make some RULES! No more will you be able to climb the tower, or if they still allow this which I don't think the should (mainly because they should've torn the ugly thing down when they had a chance and built a crepe factory) they should fine people for complaining about standing in line to catch the lift. Toughen up cup cakes. Your in France now take the stairs, that should be the new motto of the tower. Remove the lift completely. The Arc will remain untouched in the centre of that massive roundabout except for memorial days, no more people climbing to the top of the Arc, screaming and laughing and carrying on. It's a war memorial. Maybe they should move it away from that horrible street that is Champs De Elysses as well. You must not touch the art in the Louvre, this means no leaning on statues for that "clever" photograph, touching canvases or walking over ropes. If you can't afford to buy it (which most of the people there couldn't) don't fucking touch it. Kind of like my TV. And at the Notre Damn (which they should have left all beaten and run down like in "The Hunchback Of Notre Damn") and Sacre Cure (be sure to avoid the African boys at the bottom who sell you cheap pieces of thread for exorbitant rates) you will be forcibly made to check your cameras at the door. There will be no kneeling in the centre of the room with your head bowed pretending to pray while secretly filming everything through your discreetly hidden video camera. If God doesn't exist your just a rude prick for ignoring the wishes of the church and if he does.. well enjoy having your nuts roasted buddy. Paris has the big monuments whose value has been sucked away. They have the necessary arrogance to make new RULES and stick it to the tourists. You will admire these from a far. It might go a long way to returning these monuments to the sort of stature that they had when people called them truly "invaluable".

S is for Stereotypes and Self Indulgence. While not exactly being the cheese eating surrender monkey's that the rest of the world makes them out to be there are certain stereo types that envelop the French. The harder they try to shake them the more stereotypical they get. There is the arrogance, the flat out refusal to help anyone not speaking French because that is not the French way. Well that's a piss poor excuse. You don't have to speak English, German or Italian just allow yourself to be drawn into a game of charades. Allow your "Frenchness" to be pushed aside to point me in the right direction. Then there's the beret wearing. Now I know I am not at the pinnacle of fashion (the fact I have a hole in the crotch of my shorts but refuse to get a new pair attests to that) but I have a pretty grounded what is usually referred to as "common sense". I may not use it but I have spent years honing it. So when I get dressed in the morning and I choose from my clothes what I am wearing that day I turn on the common sense. Apron with boobs, funny but not appropriate, cowboy boots, cool but I am not in a band, leather chaps, comfortable when there's no crotch but since I don't swing that way not a sensible choice. It sends the wrong message. So now to anyone who has purchased a Beret that isn't part of a uniform. NO, IT IS NEVER EVER SENSIBLE to wear them, not even at home. When the revolution comes (and they are due for another one here) first people against the wall is anyone who owns a beret. I would make them register on some kind of offender list, the public has a right to know if there's one in their neighbourhood. Just like people who those Santa hats or Reindeer Antlers at Christmas time. On a list. So it's simple, just don't do it. OK?. So there are certain rules in life that must be observed. One is "people in glass houses can't throw stones". Well I have thrown a few stones but better point out that I am aware that plenty should be sent my way. So I can't have a crack at these guys with pointing out my own self indulgence in forcing people to read through pages of bullshit just to find out what we did, only to find out I've given you donuts. Look at the pictures. See I can't help it, I may be a little French because I have a grudging respect for the arrogance and the say it like it is, I don't care who you are, but I am French way they tackle life. It's just every-time I do it I am filled with guilt and self loathing. I blame Australian Politics for this. Our entire culture is built on appeasing the tourists, playing lap dog to foreign governments, being everyone's whipping boy too afraid to make a stand. This is from the leaders of the country and it leaks down to the people. Where is arrogance, why is no one in charge of our country wearing a beret and having the confidence to say "I don't care, I know it looks bad but I am Australian". It's why they are popular in Paris. This kind of self confidence would be good for the country. It's what Paris and France has in buckets.

I can't work this place out. I love it, I hate it. The Parisians probably feel the same. Anyway in summary.... I'd sleep with Paris and respect it as a city but probably wouldn't call it when I said I would.

The capital of Europe ...

2007-09-14T04:55:00.000+10:00

Brussels. It's the Adelaide of Europe. Both of them so desperate to be mainstream and accepted by the masses as an "it" destination but unwilling to let go of their quirks and idiosyncrasies that scare the ordinary people but make me so very happy. Mind you we arrived during the Brussels Summer Festival so it was very Adelaide Fringe except for the fact that when in Adelaide if you have no idea what the strange arty people are doing, you can at least speak the same language or read what they have written down. Here we just had no idea. Seriously no idea. I challenge someone to block their ears then go find some art installations at the Adelaide Festival and see how hard it makes it, sometimes it's poignant but mostly it's confusing and pointless...

Why did we go to Brussels? Well we were trying to go to Pukkelpop and Brussels was the closest place to be. It was only supposed to be one night or two before heading off into the wilderness with 100 000 people. Unfortunately for us the weather and the dates involved became a little to constricted and we were unable to go. Not that it matters because I heard through the grapevine that it was shit like Splendour in the Grass was for those that went. The up side of this is we had more time than expected in Brussels.

What kind of quirks does it have? Well, to begin with it's a massive comic book nerd. It doesn't look like it at first glance, it looks all serious and political with the big EU building, it's serious statues and business type buildings around the edge of the city. But once you scratch the surface (and you don't have to go deep) the nerd is there. And here's why. Tin Tin, the Smurfs, Astrix and Oblix were all created by Belgians. Plus they have hundreds of other iconic heroes as well. They have a museum celebrating Belgian Comic Books otherwise known as the 9th Art. They have murals on random walls through out the entire city centre 39 of them to be exact. They take up 3 stories and some of them are ginormous. We spent an entire day walking around Brussels looking for these murals, didn't see half of them but did get to see some areas of ill repute and questionable integrity. So it wasn't a total loss. In fact it was a highlight, we would have probably seen them all if there hadn't been a slight "incident!" which we will mention later. Needless to say it cost us a few hours.

Tin Tin

Another cool one!!

Second quirk is it's obsession with strange statues and urine. Mainly the worlds obsession with fountains of little boys taking a leak into a pond begins here with their "unofficial" national symbol the Mannequin Pis. It's been around for 500 years, they have 700 different little costumes for him to wear so it's rare that you see him fully nude. We saw him dressed up as Elvis taking a leak out of a jump suit and dressed up as a university graduate complete with sash, gown and mortar hat. Granted it was purple and pink and had something to do with a beer companies 10th anniversary of being the worlds best beer but he was still dressed up. Not to be left behind the girls have their own squatting girl, stashed down a little alley next to a couple of absinthe bars. It's quite strange, a little odd to look at and detailed. But you girls want everything equal so judge for yourself... Onto other strange statues, there was a guy with the best ever handle bar moustache. I don't know who he was, what he did or why he sits in a fountain but he does have the best handle bar moustache i have seen in statue form. If i die, i want a statue of me erected above my grave with a handle bar tache like this, even though i can't physically grow one i want to be remembered that way. So does Melissah (I think, I haven't asked her but I am sure that's what she would want!). What else? Well a guy on a donkey, there was a statue of Gaston (one of the comic books) but he was in for repair. Finally for the weird statues was the bell ringer on the roof. He had no advertisement, no plaque, no hint that he was there. You walk around a corner and there is a guy standing there on the edge next to a bell. No rhyme no reason. It's the Belgian way.

Pissing Boy

Smoking Nanna!!

We visited the royal palace, which was actually a lot better than the Austrian one. Mainly because it didn't bore you to death although no cameras were allowed so i have no evidence to what i saw but most of what I'll describe was actually there. There was secret doors that were clearly not secret, they had gaps cut in the wall paper and it was pretty obvious. There was a golden spittoon, in fact, there was gold everywhere, so much that it was actually on the wall, the architrave, the skirting and the door stops. There was so much it was going out of fashion. Finally there was a room and i shit you not the whole thing was green and i thought to myself "Fuckers.. there's opulence and then there's just being a dick." I figured they had taken the wizard of oz emerald city and covered a whole room in emeralds. I had to eat my words and they take it very seriously in palaces (a little guy writes them out on rice paper and then a mean guy forces you to eat them without any condiments). Turns out it was the wings of over a million bugs from Thailand (I still question the cost. And this time also the impact of de winging millions of Thailand's bugs; they'll be on Australian shores clinging to life rafts if Little Johnny gets his way. The spin generated would blow your mind. Granted there is an environmental cost to emerald mining but that's a long established industry and a few stinging words from me no matter how well worded they are will change that) Anyway back on task... So it was a massive room, think ample parking for a fleet of cars, Greg Norman could probably park a boat in there. It was big. It was bright green even the chandelier was bright green. The green was bugs wings, they do things differently here. That all happened.. I didn't lie once well except for the spittoon, that was ceramic but everything was true ask Mel.

Do you remember way back in the third paragraph I mentioned an "incident"? Those that are experienced with my stories will remember, as you have learnt to write stuff down as you go so that it all links together later, those that are new remember that for next time. Melissah has a version of this story that is so outlandish its impossible to believe but you can trust me... I'll give you the facts as they happened. We were doing our comic book tour around the city and I had the map in my back pocket, seems normal enough, map in back pocket in a city we are unfamiliar with. We were walking in front of Brussels Central Station and I took the map out of my back pocket, checked the direction and set off. Such an innocuous little event. Five minutes (ten at the most) I realised that my wallet was in the same pocket as the map and by "was", I mean it used to be in the same pocket as the map. It had fallen out somewhere since lunch (about an hour before) and we had no idea where. So we back tracked hoping that against all odds it was still sitting there (it worked with Melissah's jacket in Africa) but to no avail. It was time to do the walk of shame down to the police station to report that some one had stolen my wallet, I refuse to admit that that it was lost, someone had taken off my person somehow. Upon arrival at the station it gets a little embarrassing, strolling sheepishly through the front door portraying the figure of a hard done by tourist, the 6 ladies behind the counter all yelled out "ALLAN" "ALLAN" and started saying things in French which I loosely translated as "He looks better in person than he does in his picture" and "What a sweet piece of ass". Someone had handed in my wallet (which they had all had a good look at) with the 20 Euro still in it. Personally, I would have taken it as a tip. Anyway Melissah makes this seem much worse than it really is, she has now taken all credit cards and any sums of money off me ... it's a bit of an overreaction, it's not like I lost the passports!!! (Mel's note: but it is the second time he has lost valuable things out of his back pocket, and the second time that he has lost his wallet ... I should have taken if off of him ages ago!!)

Well lets finish this in an unstructured random way as opposed to the rest of this blog. I don't have the patience or the desire to write paragraph's on these things they didn't rile me up enough nor did they amaze me enough to warrant a paragraph but they were deemed worthy of at least a mention. So in no apparent order here are some other things that we found in Brussels. Firstly, Chunky Custard are still together, they have moved to Europe and are doing they same shit covers but are now singing in French and Flemish. Not only are the ABBA cover group massive here but all our cover groups are popular, I was keeping my eye out for a Zep Boys or The Yellow Submarines (the Australian Ringo Starr Cover Band) show at the local pub. The next thing which is probably why I am fairly mellow to these things is the beer. Melissah ordered a heavy for me and light for her not being specific has worked so far but what we got sort of twisted the definition of light and heavy. The light was 5.5% (so you can see where this is going already) the heavy i got was 11.5% and it could have stripped paint. It was heavy, I drank it and decided that moving was not high on my list of priorities. Neither was talking. I felt more productive after two nights in Amsterdam. This didn't stop trying a "midi" which at 8.5% was apparently for pussies. Well pour me a saucer of milk and scratch me behind the ears... I couldn't drink more than one heavy and that hurts me to say. Finally are the vacuum cleaners. We walked down this random road (Melissah had us lost) on a Friday night and a shop had an extension cord run out the front and vacuum cleaner running. Odd was the common thought It's going to take a lot more than that to clean this street up!. Then we looked up the street, along the whole thing was vacuum cleaners, all plugged in and running. Some had rubber gloves on the end, a lady was singing opera along with one, there were vacuum cleaners on street signs and billboards. All running. Now my environmental record isn't smashing (air cons and lights etc.) but surely this was a bit of a waste. I know that it was supposed to be "art" and these guys have a lot more renewable energy than we do but still some art I just don't get. I mean if i grease myself up and tie my body to a lamppost people will think i am some twat on a bucks show but do it at the same time as a festival and its considered subversive and intellectual. I am still a nude guy any which way.

Amsterdam ... mini London

2007-09-05T05:36:00.000+10:00

Is 2 nights in Amsterdam enough? Well it's not enough to get all the required stories that I like to write about. It's not enough if you really want to smoke and drink your time away. It's not even enough to wander the streets and canals. But that's hindsight and it's always perfect.

Arriving into Amsterdam after leaving from the Berlin station kind of makes it look like a little backwards town. It's a big step down when you go from a heaving glass behemoth to just an ordinary train station. Then thngs start getting strange. We walk across to the "information" booth across from the rail station to purchase a tram ticket. We had been practising our Dutch "Ik wel graag een" etc on the train in and we were all ready to bang it out when the ticket lady yelled at Melissah in English and was really very dismissive. So we lucked out there. We thought we would have another oppurtinty at some point. We jumped on the tram to go to our "hotel" (I am using inverted commas because i think for a hotel there must be some level of service... in my opinion anyway) where the tram driver yelled in English for everyone to move down the tram. Ok. Thats two from two. Surely this strike rate is bound to improve.

It didn't. Not one person in any way shape or form spoke Dutch to us. Perfect English the whole way. Anyone that provides some type of service, sells anything or owns something speaks perfect english. Does this say someting about the only people that visit here? No wonder everything is so expensive here it's like a mini London. The whole place seemed very commercial. Less "look at me I am a quirky city with some cool shit" and more "Hey you wanna by something? Watches, tapes, hash and women... whatever you want..". The whole place reminded me of Rundle Mall but your allowed to get stoned. There were no locals in the smoke shops either. They were full of tourists as well. I think anyone that lives in Amsterdam goes on holiday at the start of summer, rents their house out for three months and lives rent free for the rest of the year. That way you don't have to deal with the mess. They have guys sweeping the streets every morning cleaning up the shitty mess that the tourists leave behind in their inebriated state (ok... it's a bit harsh on me I was also an inebriated tourist, but anyone who knows me knows that i took all the glass panes out of my glass house and it's just the shell of a house now full of stones).

So lets talk hotels, I mean we were stepping down into a dorm to begin with, but this place was crap. The staff flat out refused to give you anything, help you with anything or even admit that they were at fault. I heard them say on a few occasions "if you don't like it leave, but we wont refund your money". I mean I've never been great at dealing with "people" but i don't think i was ever that much of a tool. One day they're going to go to the well and it will be dry and I will probably have to wait in a long long line tell them even though they are thirsty I am unable to share the urine I am about let hit the floor but feel free to go to someone else and ask for theirs. Even the bunk beds were rubbish, the rooms were tiny and breakfast was awful (toastie toastie maker was the only exception but they didn't make it available 24 hrs which would be better). I don't know how to explain its badness. We're not living it up by any stretch, we cook our own meals, we stay on tiny doubles in tiny rooms, not one of our rooms has had a jaccuzzi or spa or even a view, yet nothing has been quite this bad or quite this expensive. This was the most expensive place we have stayed (remembering we didn't have to pay in London) and we couldn't wait to leave Amsterdam beause it was that bad. It tarnished the whole Amsterdam experience, I have picked on it instead of celebrating the liberal and left wing nature of the happiest place on earth. The hotel is on the Black List. (Mel's note: you will soon see why, but I don't struggle to explain the badness of this "hotel". The first morning I got up to have a shower, when finished, it wasn't physically possible to stand outside of the shower to dry myself without opening the door of the bathroom onto the other 6 people we were sharing with, so was drying myself in the shower. Not that bad, I hear you saying ... weirdest feeling, it was like something was scratching my back, I pulled the towel around to the front to find that not only were there two whopping great big holes in the towel, that really took up about 1/3 of the towel, there was actually a massive clump of black hair holding one of the holes together ... now I clearly don't have black hair ... the worst part about this was that as we've said, we were sharing a dorm room, so I couldn't even just walk out of the bathroom and get my travel towel, I had to continue drying myself with this horrible piece of cloth. The next morning, when I went to go say something, the receptionist was having one of his "if you don't like it, go somewhere else without a refund" speeches, so I didn't ask for a new towel, I just used my travel towel. Although Allan may be known for his stretching the truth to breaking point, I haven't amended or added to this story in anyway. Unfortunately for me, this is how it was straight off the shelf)

Also of note, if you ask me (Mel) is the red light district. For anyone who hasn't been ... it was the most interesting evening walk I have ever taken. We were literally walking down the streets of the red light district with families, tour groups, women, men and the expected groups of male British tourists. This place is unreal ... I would have expected the red light district to be full of overweight, bearded ladies ... now I don't know if we went on a good night, but there were no overweight girls, no beards, no tacky clothing... Most surprising though was that they were literally in windows / behind glass doors, and you could choose your lady, open the door, close the flimsy curtain and go in. And people were. I know generally speaking I'm pretty conservative, but even Allan was shocked ... and lets be honest, not much shocks him!

So as we finish off here is a list of things we didn't do in Amsterdam :
- Heineken Museum
- Anne Frank House
- Visit the Homomonument
- Flick the switch
- Van Gogh Museum
- Ride a bike
- Visit the museum of Rembrandt and the museum with the Nightwatch in it
- Visit the Sex Museum
- Visit the Marijuana Museum
- Eat a Hamburger from a vending machine
- Missed the Spencer Tunic exhibition
- Speak any Dutch

Ich bin Berliner ...

2007-09-04T20:23:00.000+10:00

I am a jam donut. Isn't that what Kennedy said? Well that's what we got told anyway. Berlin was brilliant, although it could only get better after the start we had. We had some petty sweet digs in a cool location. We (and by we I am once again abusing the term and really mean Mel) could speak the language (or so she claims) and the transport system was ace. This hasn't been an issue since London but when the stuff to see is so spread out then it's nice to have an effective transport system! To prove how good the system is (or how money hungry the London Underground is), in London it costs Aus $18 for 1 day travel, where as in Berlin it costs Aus $30 for 3 days of travel. Bargain in anyone's language.

After missing one day due to my inability to control my drinking we started officially on day 2. We just wandered about Berlin, no idea on the geography or layout of the city, no current information on where any of the big "touristy" type places were. We just jumped on a train and went to see what we could see I suppose you could say. The first highlight we came across was the Haupt Bahnhof, the main train station in central Berlin. This thing is massive, all glass, 5 storey's high, trains going North and South in the bottom section and East and West at the top section. I didn't realise how exciting a train station was until you're 5 storey's up looking directly down onto a train zooming through at an enormous pace. Turns out though, that this was just the start of the glass buildings throughout Berlin. Apparently it's all to do with symbolism and not as I cynically suggested, that all the architects have stakes in glass manufacturers. The next glass building was the Reichstag, Germany's parliament before the second world war and after reunification. It was pretty good. It still had the old stone frontage, except where the doors were and the whole interior was glass. It also has the massive glass dome that you can climb and view the whole city. Being glass though it tends to heat up quite a lot and be very uncomfortable at the very top. At the base of the dome, it has a history of the building, and of Germany's political history. I was expecting it to completely ignore say a fifteen year period when things weren't so hunky dory but it was pretty honest and open about it. Some of the photos they show, of it after the war with Soviets on it and of the National Socialists interrupting parliament was a surprise, I just assumed it wasn't talked about. How often do you talk about the bad shit you've done? I never do. Not that I've ever done any bad shit... But as far as parliament buildings go, this is the best government building I have seen. You name it, this is better. I didn't realise how much I liked it until I started writing, but apparently I like it quite a bit.

So it turns out that we didn't take any photos of the
outside of the Reichstag, but here's one we took of the inside!

Unfortunately it seems I like Berlin. I say unfortunately because it makes writing this harder. It's easy to be quite cynical and a little cruel about a place when it seems a little backward or odd or just seems to be trying a little hard. Berlin doesn't seem to do or be any of those. Berlin just is. So what am I going to do? Well I am going recommend you include Berlin on your travels then I am going to town on the nazi's, the communists, the yanks and maybe the Berlin City Council. Also I probably will be a little insulting to the weather and our continuing ability to lose stuff and cost us precious euros (once again I am slightly abusing the plural when it should be very singular.)

The Nazi's aren't really that much fun to talk about, you mention them and everyone sort of mentions them in hushed tones and and generally feels a little bit wrong for even knowing what they did. But what struck me, and this also goes for the communists as well; but how James Bond this lot were. Not James Bond the hero, but all the James Bond baddies. Think CONTROL, Dr NO etc. These guys had delusions of grandeur. I mean I knew that Hitler wanted to control a lot of stuff, what I hadn't worked out was how much. Turns out he wanted to control the world and not only control the world but make the capital of the world Germania (the artist formerly known as Berlin). It just seems a little James Bond baddie doesn't it? The funniest part is that instead of waiting to win, then building his new capital of the world, while he was fighting a war on two fronts he was also redesigning Berlin to fit his new plan. I'm pretty sure this goes beyond arrogant and ventures a little bit into insane (still fits the Bond comparison). People were probably a little scared to point this out though. So of all the things he had built and done two things make me laugh. They have a victory column, which up until WWII was three sections high. One section for each previous military victory (way back in the day!). He added a section. Hello arrogance. Then he had it moved to suit his new capital. That makes me laugh. The other isn't what he did but what happened after. He had a new building built to govern out of (its where his bunker is/was). It was huge and full of marble, red marble. I mean huge. How do you know it was huge? Well the marble that was lining his office was used by the soviets after the war to build their war memorial (more on that later) and to line a massive subway station. That's a lot of marble and its pretty funny how the soviets deliberately used it to build a memorial for the Soviet soldiers that died taking Berlin.

So lets talk a little about the not at all depressingly titled "Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe". Lots of blocks all uneven that has no explanation except that you're supposed to come up with one on your own. That's cool. It's quite a monument and it's probably the only thing in Berlin that isn't covered in graffiti. If it sits still, it's covered. This stuff has been covered in a special anti graffiti spray which means paint doesn't stick. The rumour is, that the anti graffiti spray is causing the monument (all the concrete blocks) to develop massive cracks. So that's an issue, the disturbing part allegedly is that the company that supplied the anti graffiti spray for the memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe is the same company that supplied Zyklon B to the Nazi's during the war. Look up what this was used for. Then look up the definition of irony. (Mel's note - for those that can't be bothered looking it up, it was the pellets used to create the gas for the gas chambers at the concentration camps)

Still on the memorial, we were told it was supposed to have more blocks and extend to the road on it's border. Looking at it, it still does extend to the road. Well that's because the road has recently been moved 2 meters towards the memorial away from the building on the other side of the road under construction. What type of people would have a road moved closer to a memorial and make it smaller as a consequence all just to have an extra 2 m width from the road to their back door? Give yourself a pat on the back if you guessed America. Then give yourself another pat on the back if you went "why the hell would you let them do that?" No one could answer this question and I don't have internet time to research the actual reasons given although "terrorism" and "security" would be the buzz words that I would go with. "Arrogance" would be the buzz word I would choose.

Let's move on to the communist East. I know what your thinking. Are you guys picking on the communists? Surely they weren't all that bad? Well yeah we are a little bit and yeah they were a lot. But the thing is they leave themselves so open to being picked on not only for the stuff they did when they were in power but for the stuff that happened afterwards. So I am not going to tell you about all the stuff that happened between the east and west in Berlin, I am going to leave that as a little research assignment for you, all I am saying is that at some point the East side built a wall to stop people crossing to the West and when I turned 9 the wall was being pulled down. Anyhow, the communists in the fifties and sixties were getting pretty good at space travel and they were building rockets and there was a general concern about what kind of weapons they were building. Mind you no one seemed to worried about what weapons the west was developing (or still are developing... sorry that was a little preachy). So in Berlin there was a wall, on one side American soldiers manning the checkpoint on the other were the Soviets. In a show of technological superiority the soviets started building a space age TV tower, just to show everyone on the west (cause you can't miss this thing anywhere in Berlin) how good and advanced it was over there. Turns out that they got halfway up this show of technological might and had to call in a western company to finish it. So that's funny. It gets funnier, when the sun shines on the disco ball (the middle of the TV tower) from the west you get a Christian cross appearing on it in a massive way. We know how the commies feel about religion! It's called the "popes revenge" and the guy who designed the ball spent a week being talked to by the stasi (secret police) trying to work out whether it was deliberate (unfortunately it was a lucky accident but that just makes it better). Check the pictures. So the final insult to the might of communist power is that once the wall came down they stuck the poster boy for capitalism in there. Yes we had a Starbucks coffee in a communist building and the irony was delicious.

The pope's revenge

Al enjoying his starbucks coffee in the communists TV tower

Do you remember a while back I mentioned that Stalin built a war memorial? Well he built two actually. Maybe three. We saw two anyway. Both of them are just full of communist arrogance. The first was being built from the first couple of days after the fall of Berlin. At the exact point of Hitler's imagined Germania where the east west axis meets the north south axis. The exact middle of his fantasy city. There are some brilliant pictures there of the thing being built with destroyed buildings and scorched earth all around. The best is the Reichstag building in the background, basically a shell with this brand new shiny statue of a soviet soldier with his arm extended out and down to symbolically "keep the Nazi party down". Apparently in the area around it lie the graves of 2000 Russian soldiers who died taking the Reichstag building. It's an impressive memorial.

But it wasn't the best. The best was the one down in Treptow if anyone wants to go looking for it. This thing is massive. Grandiose. I walked around it for two hours with an open mouth and couldn't help shaking my head. There is a 15 m high statue of a soviet soldier carrying a child and a sword with a broken swastika at his feet. He looks down on a massive garden full of sandstone crypts with quotes from Stalin on them and engravings of scenes from the war. The quotes are all about the victory over fascism and the freedom from Hitler's regime. Then at the halfway point (about 500 m away from the statue) are two massive Soviet flags made from .... remember i mentioned it earlier... that's right the marble from Hitler's new office. Maybe he shouldn't have chosen red... In-front of the flags, are two soldiers on their knees in a sort of reflective, "the thinker" (Rodin's statue, look it up lazy I ain't explaining everything) type poses. More "the thinker" with big guns and war medals. Then at the far end (still another 500m further on) is a statue of a woman crying. This is "the motherland" weeping for her lost sons. At either side of the woman and up to the soldiers are perfectly spaced trees and the entrances were evenly matched massive stone archways. The size of this thing is unreal. Everything about it, although it is a war memorial (5 000 men are buried here) has propaganda written all over it. It just has that self indulgence about it. It seems more an advertisement for Soviet soldiers and their might and power than a sombre reflection on the lives that were lost. But it's an amazing memorial. I would like a memorial to me this big when i die.

The Memorial "photo of a photo!!"

Those huge red figures are made out of the marble from Hitlers office

The massive statue of the solider holding the child

So as punishment for having such fun in Berlin, on the day we went to Treptow, it was raining. Just a hint when we left, not bad, definitely not London bad but we took our rain jackets just in case. We walked around down in Treptow for half an hour looking for the war memorial (don't ask how we missed something a kilometre long, we just did) and just before we found it the heavens opened up. Determined I may have forced Melissah to (and to steal a quote) "toughen up cupcake" and brave the rain. So by the time we found it Melissah's pants were like tights and mine were like a went sack. Unfortunately we couldn't take any photo's due to the rain so we went home to get dry. Which by the way is when the rain stopped and the sun came out. Determined for photographic evidence, I returned alone. I had my train ticket checked on the way back. I arrived and the clouds came back over and at that point i was unhappy about global warming or god (that's right lower case letters) I just couldn't make up my mind which. I eventually decided there was at least evidence of global warming so i decided it was to blame. I got my photos and went to get back on the train. Turns out while running the gauntlet trying to paparazzi the memorial while avoiding the rain i lost my train ticket. It also turns out that while running the same gauntlet the 10 euro in emergency money i took with me may have also fallen out of my pocket. So I stood at the platform and shook my fist at the sky screaming "Damn you Global Warming... Damn you to Hell....." at which point the Germans surrounding me all took a step away. I rode the tube back illegally. Don't tell anyone.

So that's Berlin. Aside from the fact i had the "wurst" wurst I had eaten on the streets outside checkpoint Charlie (which is fake by the way.. the real one was dismantled) Berlin was my favourite place so far. There are plenty more obscure little stories that are in with pictures but this would have gone on for days had i written them all on here. Short and snappy is my mantra for writing. Make it easy for you guys out there. So check the pics for the stories, they'll be in note form and we'll see you in Amsterdam (if we remember any of it)...

No more overnight trains ...

2007-09-03T06:03:00.000+10:00

Let me paint you a picture with words... I am not the worlds best sleeper, not many people realise that this perfectly created individual has some flaws ... granted you have to look hard to find them ... but there are some there. Some might say that this is what makes me so interesting to you. Melissah on the other hand is a perfect sleeper, be it planes, trains or automobiles she can go to sleep anywhere. So we decided to get an overnight train from Krakow to Berlin, sleep on the train so we don't lose a day in Berlin. Maximise the up time and minimise the down time, it's all power phrases in the world of travel.

So you have that picture in your mind? Well put that picture like a comic book in the top right corner of the page because there's a few more scenes to come. Cleverly we booked a second class couchette, which only has 6 people crammed into it and not much in the way of cooling. We had a young couple (maybe 16 maximum 18) traveling with one of their mothers and an old bag who did nothing for 12 hours except give me the evil eye. Plus us two, that makes it a pretty crammed couchette. So put that in the top left of your comic book panel and we'll move on.

We loaded our luggage into the room, set up our beds and laid down, it was only 8 pm in the evening so i said to Melissah (and this is my recollection, it could be biased) "Do you want to go for a walk and stretch your legs?" "no" she replied "I want to stay with our stuff!". "Thats cool... do you mind if i go for a walk. I'll be back soon" "No worries"... Thats the gist of it anyway. So I toddled off and lo and behold I found a bar on the train. I'll just have one quiet beer and then head back and get some shut eye was what i thought to myself. Melissah will worry about me if i am gone too long. That was at 8. At midnight I returned to the cabin for more money and went back to the bar where I was socialising with the customary Pom's (what bar can you go into and not find one) and a couple of polish soldiers who had recently served in Iraq (thats right apparently Poland are in the "alliance" as well). It was a pretty fascinating night. So i finally crawled into bed at a little after three.

So for comic book aficionados you need to insert a diamond shaped window in the centre of your page. As we are looking at what went through Melissah's mind during the seven hours that I was absent. Are you ready to sympathise (everyone always takes her side!!!!) Melissah is lying in bed, listening to 4 people snore actually two people snore while the couple snuck into bed with each other for some heavy petting.... until the mum woke up and went ballistic.. Uncomfortable!!! Anyway she tells me she was wondering whether I'd been mugged, thrown off the train or the more likely found some people in the bar and decided not to come back. Unfortunately I assumed it was all cool with her that I stayed here otherwise she would come and get me but Melissah saw it a tad different because everything we currently own is sitting in two backpacks and she was the sole person guarding these, so coming to look for me was apparently not an option. I'm glad it wasn't me guarding them because I would have wandered off and left them there. Oh I also didn't think through the fact that I had both mine and Mel's passports, so had we been checked during the night, Melissah probably would have been thrown off the train. Then who would guard our stuff??? But it's easy to sound hard done by when you have been hard done by, the real skill is getting sympathy when it's self inflicted.

I hope your holding on because the final picture of this comic is pretty unsightly.. So 3 hours later after sleeping through passport control (that's a whole other story) we arrived in Berlin. I figured it was the last stop so in my hung over / still drunk state was taking my sweet arse time. Turns out it was on its way to the Ukraine which flipped Melissah out and meant that when i took all the bags off the train I may have been partially responsible for leaving 30 euro worth of food behind.. I say partially responsible because I am sticking by my stance that the European Train Network should shoulder most of the responsibility due to the fact that Berlin isn't a final stop. Surely you agree.

Last part, exhausted we (I say we but Melissah had her back pack on and was ready for the day ahead... some people slept and didn't worry about whether i had been thrown off!) sat down for a slight rest. With everyone streaming past me at the train station, and the hot air, I started to feel unwell. This chapter ends with me throwing up into a bin on the platform of the train station, German workers passing me by probably thinking "Shit, another Australian in Berlin. Just what we need" Melissah looked pretty embarrassed. So I slept the day away and ended up wasting a day in berlin anyway. New travel rule... No more overnight trains (well unless it has no bar).

In case you failed to follow the comic book story line, this is what yours should have looked like ...

Poland ... just different

2007-08-25T03:57:00.000+10:00

Well I set Al the challenge that by the time we leave Berlin we have to have everything up to date on the blog. Naturally this has proven to be a challenge for him due to his lavish stories, so I have been given the task of Poland. I would also like to add that we left Berlin around 10 days ago, and it’s taken him that long to add something at the bottom so I can put this up!!

We were only in Poland for 3 or 4 days, but it was definitely the most eye opening experience we have had to date... it´s the one thing I still can´t get out of my mind. We spent the whole time in Krakow and then did a day trip out to Auschwitz, both were totally different experiences and deserve their own explanation!

Krakow

We stayed the four days in Krakow, which used to be the capital city of Poland years ago as the royal family all lived there. Which is handy, because it means that there is a lot of history, a standard Castle to peruse and plenty of old buildings. We didn’t really do anything of note in Krakow aside from walk up to the castle and to walk around the streets. It’s a really beautiful city, but I think we missed a lot of it because we went to Auschwitz on our second day and didn't really feel like doing much for the few days after that!

The Castle

Auschwitz

There's not really a lot that can be said about Auschwitz to do it any amount of justice - it was obviously one of the largest Nazi concentration camps for the extermination of the Jews during World War 2. They have turned both Auschwitz and Auschwitz 2 into museums and have done a great job of trying to give some perspective to what happened at these sites.

I guess the only thing to say about it is if you are in Europe I would recommend a trip to Auschwitz - it's certainly not a pleasant day, but one that I think is worth taking to understand why something like this can never happen again.

Now for Al's take ...

I don’t really do serious, I try, but it just comes across like a John Howard speech, lots of words but no substance. I suppose there is still a grain of truth left in what I say though… (pause for effect and laughter).

It’s funny how in places of such magnitude of events, a place full of death and destruction, a place that’s supposed to be revered and respected, where your supposed to maybe learn a little about yourself; that people do the strangest things.

There were a bunch of guys wearing the star of David flag around Auschwitz as a badge of pride (which I get) unfortunately they just looked like Australian bogans at the beach on Australia day. It didn’t suite the place, like wearing a suit and tie into a low class strip club where everyone else is in thongs and wife beaters. Then there are the tourists obsessed with that one perfect shot. Laying on the train tracks to get the better angle, walking on the ruins just to get a deeper shot, stepping past the no entry sign just for a clearer angle. And worst of all no one stops them.

If I were in charge of Auschwitz I would have security everywhere and wouldn’t hesitate in snapping cameras in half just to prove a point. People will soon work out that it’s not worth the effort.

So, finally, the tour groups; I am not having a go at tours, we quite like tours, but what we have noticed is that many people are getting tours around the concentration camps as a “bonus” (to their other tour or bus trip etc etc)! Doesn’t that strike you as odd? “Thanks for using our services, as a bonus for spending all that money with us here’s an absolutely free tour, with one of our wacky guides around a place where 6 million people came to die. Take care, have a nice day!! Don’t forget to shop here again” Blows your freakin mind….

Where the f@€k Is Bratislava?

2007-08-13T06:46:00.000+10:00

So we arrived in Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia (formerly part of Czechoslovakia and small player behind the Iron Curtain for those that are following us on an outdated map!) taking a short train trip from Vienna. For those following in our footsteps may I recommend the infinitely more fun ferry down the Danube. The train trip only takes an hour and costs bugger all but the entrance from Bratislava Train Station is not as interesting as the entrance into the city via the river. The train station is St Kilda / Hindley Street at its worst ... plenty of junkies, distinct smell of urine and more graffiti than the Berlin Wall, where as the entrance via the river displays the best and worst of communist architecture and building, with no smell of urine!!

So Bratislava is as loopy as Prague, if not loopier. They are really self deprecating, tease themselves a lot by saying no one knows where it is (literally the most common souvenir t-shirt says “Where the fuck is Bratislava”!!) and say the only tourists they get are English blokes out on a bucks night! Which incidentally we did see some English blokes out on a bucks night! But it does have things to see. It has a castle (like all good European cities), it has statues (like all great cultural hubs), it has architecture (like all anywhere with a long heritage) and it has some strange stories (like everywhere if you look hard enough!).

Soooo the castle, everywhere has a castle, I know why but it still has to be said that there are a lot of castles going round. Anyway what’s special about this castle? Well aside from the fair stroll to the top of the hill the castle was burnt down in the war, communist invasion or some drunken night pick one because I am not particularly sure which is the responsible event. All I know is that it burnt down and they, at some stage in recent memory, decided to rebuild their castle. So did they rebuild it the way it was? Not in this day and age where the building industry the world over looks at something complex, breathes in heavily and says "well... you see it's just not that easy. That’s gonna cost ya!" I should know I've said those words. What they did was where there was a part of the building ok they rendered up to it, so you could see that it was there, they put some older style bricking up, put some brand new tinted windows in and made it a simple square. So you have these strange walls with old style corners, walls with half a window frame jutting out but modern plaster hiding where the window was and half a column sliding up the wall. It doesn't do anything but its there nonetheless. It's true. Ask Melissah if you don't believe me!

The kind of rebuit castle!

An example of the windows!

Onto it's classic statues. Do they have statues of religious significance? No. Do they have statues remembering national heroes? No. Do they have statues at all? Yes. The statues they have are a little strange. They have one called "the watcher" a guy that is half out a man hole looking into the street. They have one called "the paparazzi" "a guy leaning around the corner with a big camera. Then they have one called "the Frenchman" and instead of him being a cheese eating surrender monkey (which is how I would have identified him as French and is that from the Simpson’s? I don't have time to check my references these days.) it's actually a French soldier leaning over a park bench. Then they have a weird guy that looks like the little bloke from monopoly but some one has snapped half his hand off to steal his hat and a guy that looks like David Bowie having a cup of tea and a biscuit. Strange but not the strangest we saw.

The Watcher

The Paparazzi

The strangest by far was in the grounds of the castle, 15 naked metal men. All bolted together, like some one had molded someone’s arm, someone’s face, someone’s ear etc etc and then bolted them all together to make some strange looking army looking down on the town! Some had their knobs missing, one had it’s ass missing … but that didn't stop Melissah taking photos of these poor naked statues manhood. It was cold that day to so everything would be smaller (someone has to stick up for them!). There was a sign in Slovakian explaining what the naked statues were about, but with neither of us being fluent in Slovakian, we are none the wiser about these weird men.

Now the architecture... Like Prague it had some Art Nouveau, some Gothic and some Renaissance but most of that was in the city square, what Bratislava had the most of was 1950's communist architecture. Slabs of concrete straight up. Just straight up. I took 15 photos of a skyline from the castle and they are all the same. (Mel’s note: actually it’s closer to 50 photos, but who’s counting) I dunno how they get home on a Saturday night pissed. I have a hard enough time in Southbank and those buildings are different. I think you would try twenty flat number 10's before your key worked and you hit the right one. This is the first place it really stood out. They just put buildings up with pace, no regard to the surrounds. I don't think you realise how little the communists cared about the small details when they were in power. Just house the people. So what if its ugly, so what if you have to destroy an old old old church for it. Just do it (not implying anything about the company whose slogan that is)

As far as the eye can see concrete slabs

Did you just say destroy a church? Yes I said destroy a church. Why? Well they wanted to join their brand new concrete jungle with the old town. They had a space age new bridge with a fancy space age tower that needed to go in and well those communists didn't really rate religion that much did they! So they just knocked down half a church, put the road through it and bricked up the church again. The church basically halved in size in a day. You can still see where the walls were, where the road goes through and where the windows were.

The Church

The highway / bridge

The bridge

Unfortunately we couldn't spend an evening in Bratislava and follow the English buck (dressed up as Daffyd from Little Britain) around. We had to do the train back to Vienna and spend the last night in Vienna as the train to Krakow left form there and not Bratislava. But if your going to do a bit more research than our standard none, I think this place has a shit load to offer. The one day here was brilliant, probably not long enough, but not a waste either. If you do come here may I also recommend going to Michaels (maybe saint) Gate and under it or next to it is an Italian restaurant. Can't remember what its called but its orange and its out the back in a big beer garden. Anyway don't look at the menu just order the calzone. Brilliant. So brilliant in fact that Melissah has instituted a pizza/calzone ban on me. It hurts but hopefully I can have it reversed by Italy.. Peace!

In Vienna we sit in a late night cafe....

2007-08-09T06:17:00.000+10:00

Vienna ... well it didn't do much for me. I don't want to down on the town because my reveiw could impact on the crowds planning to go to Euro 2008 in Austria (thats right my word is becoming that powerful across the world or so i hear anyway!) but i think we were pointed in the wrong direction a bit..

If you are going to Euro 2008 in Vienna stay at the Hostel Ruthersteiner, it had the lot. Sweet kitchen with tonnes of pots and pans, a pumping bar with some cool bar tenders, awesome outside areas and small rooms so people don't hide out in there but are forced into the common areas. Just if you can play the piano, don't sit down and play "Heart and Soul", the bar tender is likely to slam your fingers shut in the lid of the piano, then do some unpleasent things to you with piano wire... Well ok so maybe thats what i thought the bar tender should do rather than his actual thoughts but don't play this song to me for the next 6 months at least.. Also i am going to have to delete all jeff buckley off my ipod as this brazillian guy kept singing buckley songs in the court yard and esposing the virtues of a guy that released one and a half albumns. I mean give me a break. And he was rubbish aswell. But thats ok, he added to the melting pot and they gave me something to hate which made everything else seem so much better.

So we went to the Sigmund Freud Museum. I thought i was going to learn about phsycho analysis and be able to have a crack at analysing some people back at the lodge.. Unfortunately unless you are unhealthily interested in Freud and his life then there isn't much there for you. In fact nothing on his whole field, its assumed you know already, that you have already done 5 years at uni and that you have come to see his waiting room and his suitcase. It was dissapointing. It made my analysis later that night of those around seem a little incensere and hollow ... That guy with the stupid hat he's a tool, that girl in the pink singlet she is loose with her morals and the guy in the corner wants to be a bumble bee (that one was easy he was dressed in yellow and black and had a jar of honey).

We also visited the Kaiser Apartments (nothing to do with the band), this is the home of Austria's last emporer and his manic deprissive wife who loved being rich but hated having to work for it. So here's the thing i am going to be considerate to those reading and edit out the tour of 40 rooms of silverware, table cloths, plates and chamber pots for you. Unfortunately no one considered me before making me walk through 40 rooms of said items before anything remotely interesting happens. Whats the interesting thing Al? The gift shop located in the middle of the tour. What can you buy at the gift shop Al? Everything to do with a Royal Family that you have no ideas about because all that you've learnt is that have a 400 piece gold table setting that they don't use. So when does it get interesting? Well it doesn't. I don't mean to be rude to the Austrians but it seems to me they have this whole thing back to front. They have a museum dedicated to Emporer Franz Joseph (he doesn't have an affectionate name so i call him frankie) and his wife Emporess Elissabeth (sissi). She was an awful poet, i mean terrible, there are emo's outside flinders street station that write more interesting prose. (Note - She did write in german so it may lose something in the tranlation. Although it would have to lose a lot) She banged out a couple of kids out of duty (they´re royals, its expected) and then just wigged out. She was obbsessive about her weight and figure, spent 4 hours working out, used bizzare face creams to preserve her youth and banned people photographing her after her 30th birthday. So using my experience from Freud museum, I am going to hazard that she was insanely Vain and massively obbsessive. She refused to appear at public functions, infact just left her husband to do it all and she moved to an island in Greece. Her son topped himself, she wears all black (she may be the original emo), she insults her first grand child by calling it the ugliest child she's ever seen (or something like that). She had a boat built with a glass cage on top so she could sit in heavy storms and watch the water pour over the deck while the crew were down stairs (suicidal you think?). Spent shit loads of coin building houses around the world living in them for short periods then leaving never to return (ADD?). Meanwhile Frankie sits at home signing the cheques. So as far as i can tell she contributed nothing to Austria, yet once she was assasinated (by accident ... sort of) she became the peoples queen.... I know all this because there massive rooms dedicated to her. Frankie on the other hand gets stiffed. He was a pretty good guy I am assuming if he put up with Sissi's shit without complaing. I mean there was the world war he was involved with but aside from that blemish at the end he was a strong ruler who strenghthened Austria's position in Europe. The country was pretty rich under his rule and no one got out of hand.... But i don't know cos they don't tell you. They WASTE too much time on a woman that 100 years earlier they would have had killed. Ask Henry VIII, he would have just got a new wife. She was nuts. Bonkers. Loony. Not really that good.

Anyone some fun stuff.... Like all good monarchy's they have a summer palace.. It's massive, over blown, probably 700 more rooms than was actually required. Like all good summer palaces its miles away from their regular home, infact it takes a whole 15 minutes to walk from winter to summer palace. Once you have wiped the excess sarcasm off that last statement, it is a very nice place and it did have one of the highlights of Vienna, not for any artistic or cultural merits but for pure childish competition. It had a hedge maze. So Mel vs Al in the race to the centre. We had the maze cleared of all children (even though its probably there for them), loaded up on electrolytes and regretted not having a pasta meal the night before, stretched and finally tossed a coin to see who would enter going left and who would enter going right. At the starters pistol we were away. It's hard running in a maze when you cant see whose coming around the corner, we only ran into each other once and it was the most childish behaviour I've experienced since I've been 26. Had I been 25 still, i would have expected the holding, scratching, biting and name calling. So anyway i bet you're wondering who won... I did. I had some lunch, a cool drink and sent out for a pizza. After a while the guy who ran the maze asked if he could let the children back in, i told him yes. Then eventually Melissah made it to the centre.. If i had lost it would have been another shit thing in Vienna but i didn't!!!!

The maze

Completely lost ... Triumph ... at last!

Finally... This is just a note of pride for me really. I ordered 2 tickets to Krakow in german. Melissah left me (she speaks german by the way!!! not that she uses it!) to fend for myself (people don't understand my english let alone another language) against a nasty Austrian man who didn't speak english. So i tried to remember all the words in german i knew. When i got through all the swear words and he opened his booth back up i managed to use solitary words to get a ticket. Massive ups to me....

peace.

Prague.. Why has no one christened you in verse yet?

2007-08-07T20:38:00.000+10:00

Maybe because you don't rhyme with anything... Prague is the "orange" of world capitals. Ask a poet as to why that's the funniest pun you'll read all day.

... Well we arrived in Prague for three days, left after five and probably would still be there if i had my way! It was a freaking strange place, a little bit backward during the day, not backward in coming forward at night and if you looked at it sideways, it kind of streamed back in time (except for the millions of tourists everywhere.).

Infact ... as a side (this has nothing to do with Prague) I am just going to get some stuff off my chest... Tourists... Wankers... The Lot of Them... Constantly in my way, always at the places I want to go, I have spent more time lining up because of tourists than doing any touring. If i had my way, the tourists in every town I want to go to would be shipped on before I arrive and returned once I have left. Is it too much to ask? Am i on my own here? I am sure we have all thought it. Infact I bet you're sitting there thinking 'well maybe I should get in on this as well'. Well you can be, it just means there'll be a complicated system of rankings to see who gets to go to a town at any particular time. I mean its like the celberity system, Ben Affleck can't get the presidential sweet if Brad and Angelina are there. He just isn't high enough on the list, but if Ricky Gervais was there and Ben wanted it, Ricky would be on his arse quicker than you can say.. well you probably wouldn't have time to say anything.

That segue was for anyone that used to sit through my match reports wanting some info on the game and getting ten minutes of shit....

Back to Prague. The backpackers was rubbish, it was a University dorm room, with beds on seperate sides of the room (we haven't been travelling for that long to need seperate beds although I am sure that time will come) and a kitchen with no utensils, so any ideas of cooking were completely thrown out. That's not entirely a problem for me and my ever increasing waistline, but having the choice taken away just added to the pain of an already rubbish location.

Prague itself though, has some cool architecture, heaps of museums, lots of history (did i miss Australia's baroque period or our Gothic one...... oh thats right we don't have this kind of shit at home), funky statues and crazy night life ... it doesn't seem to sleep.

So Al, what are you going to tell me about? Your favourite buildings or statues? Or are you going to waste my time talking about that fabulous Calzone you had? Well if i am to answer honestly I was going to write about the calzone i had but i had a better one more recently and that is getting an entire blog dedicated to it. So i am going to give you some weird stuff that i learnt while i was here....

Fun Fact One - In Prague there is a massive massive massive 6 lane highway that cuts through the main city square right past the National Museum. Ugly as shit. Cuts through the town at the bottom of the hill on massive pylons. Seriously ugly and you can't hide it. Well i think you get the picture (and if you don't check the Prague pics for an idea) it was built by the communist party when they were in power so in case of a civil uprising in the centre of town they could get all the tanks from the army base outside of town to the centre of town quickly.. The irony, they built it for that purpose and never used it until the tanks went home...

What Al neglects to tell you is that he got us lost, and we had to climb

up the side of a hill to get back onto this gianormous thing!

Fun Fact Two - The main museum looks like a parliament building, it's in the centre of the city and has all these white dots on it. Those white dots were from the Soviets taking pot shots at what they thought was "parliament". Turns out they hadn't exactly done their research although it does look like a parliament house.

Fun Fact Three - There's a statue on the Charles Bridge. You touch it for luck. There used to be a cross (19th century it washed away) so students just started touching the statue as they walked past. So the tourists copied. Now it's a tradition that means nothing .... Kind of like Christmas or Easter.

Fun Fact Four - St Wenceslas (think of the Christmas carol) is the national Saint. Officially a hero, represented on a horse and was stabbed in the back by his brother so that his brother could be King (not an entirley unbeleivable story). Some people don't beleive this story though and instead believe that he was killed because he wouldn't fight in a war (also believable). So there are two massive staues one of "the great King/Saint on his horse ready for war". The other is a "The king sitting on an upturned horse not going to war and looking quite stupid". I like the second one, nothing like a healthy dose of public cynicism.

Fun Fact Five - They built a massive, massive, massive statue of Stalin when he died. 30 meters from ground to tip with massive communist figures behind him all thirty meters tall. It took 4 years to build. Stood on top of the hill looking over town. Then Khrushchev (the next guy in power) slammed Stalin as a killer and said he shouldn't be idolised. So they had to blow the whole thing up within a year or two. They even erased it from the background of town photos. This was before photo shopping....

Fun Fact Six- They have some creepy and cool museums. The museum of torture, the museum of Sex Toys (seriously) and a museum of communism (ironically above the biggest McDonalds in Prague). I loved the communist museum, it was the place i learnt the most from..

So there you have Prague. A strange little place full of funny little stories and friendly people that love telling you weird stories. But thats what makes places great, the little things, the quirkiness. Ohhh did i mention the beef goulash with dumplings.. That was delicous too...

Rain, rain, go away ...

2007-07-26T23:11:00.000+10:00

Well we just spent about a week in London, pretty much chilling out and enjoying being back in the civalised world ... it's funny how much you miss things like cars made after 1990, coffee and feeling safe to walk on a street and how much you don't miss McDonalds, Starbucks and overpriced food! London must have heard that we were coming, because of the 6 days we were there, it rained for 5 of them! Infact, rained is a little bit of an understatement, it ABSOLUTELY POURED the whole time we were there.

We arrived on Thursday morning and gave Em a call to see how to make if from Heathrow airport to her place. Turns out, the easiest way was a 40 pound cab ride, may be up to 50 because of traffic, no worries, hang up, let Allan know that we could get a cab and it was only 40 pounds. Al gave me a look of disbelief - Do I realise that 40 pounds is just over $100?? Hmmm... after 30 minutes of searching, we found the underground nicely priced at $10 each ... an hour and a half later, instead of 40 minutes we arrived at Em's sweating, disgusting and with our shoulders aching from carrying our packs ... welcome to the life of a backpacker!! It was at this exact moment that I decided I didn't want to be a backpacker, if this is what was involved! We spent the rest of the day on Emma's couch, feeling sorry for ourselves!! Al's note: Mel also spent 2 hours straightning her hair just because she could. i don't think its important i just think it needs mentioning.

Friday was catch up day, we spent the morning booking our flights to Prague (which is where we are at the moment!!) and the afternoon catching up with all our Aussie mates in London!! Caught up with Joe, Roly, Todd and Mandy for a beer and then dragged them all along for dinner with Paps, Sal and Coads. After the three weeks in Africa, it felt so good to catch up with mates and have a nice meal! Was also good that Paps and Sal are heading to Africa soon, so we could share stories and pass on our wisdom that we picked up on our travels hehehe ...

Saturday we spent in traditional Australian format - I caught up with Loz for breakfast and then went shopping, and Al went and watched the footy (AFL) at a pub with Paps ... ahhhh ....Al's note: stupid hawks.

Saturday night we had had enough and decided that regardless of the weather on Sunday, we were going out to see the sights of London. Miraculously, Sunday was the one day that we were in London that it didn't rain!! The day started with getting caught up in the changing of the gaurd at Buckingham Palace (seriously, if you're in the area, make sure you avoid it!!) and included Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Harrods, a ride on a big red bus, picadilly circus, Hyde Park and I'm sure the list would go on if I could remember!!

Monday we went shopping for a laptop - Al has decided that he NEEDS a little one to take with us so that he can update our blog on a word doco and then transfer it to the internet when we have access - if we do track one down, it will mean more frequent updates at least! And Tuesday we headed off for Prague. Als note: if i get a laptop it's better for you guys!!!!

We spent about a day trying to work out where to head next, being Summer, it's RIDICULOUSLY priced for any form of transport to take you on to the mainland (the train that goes through the tunnel to Paris was $1000 each!!), so Al finally worked out that we could get to Prague quite cheaply and then make our way down through Austria, Croatia and Italy to be in France for the end of August when we are meeting Emma and TG and a group of their mates for a week in a Villa. Not sure that it ended up that cheap in the end, what with the $100 it cost us to get to the airport, but still the cheapest none the less!!

See you in Prague

The deadline in South Africa...

2007-07-23T19:31:00.000+10:00

South Africa wasn't quite what either of us expected!

So i don't know how we do it, we must put out some sort of pheromones that attracts freaks. After orantz (sic) in Hazyview we thought we might have a freak free time for a little while. But apparantly that was never going to happen. Jo'burg is in the middle of a "taxi war" if you get the wrong taxi there have been attacks, muggings and deaths due to this "war". So we organised a taxi through the backpackers, this white 1990 toyota corolla arrived Melissah leaned in to me and said "shit, its the same taxi as Vic Falls. I swear if one these doors doesn't open I am refusing to get in". Thankfully for Blanky the Taxi driver they all opened. Like a real gentleman he took Melissahs massive backpack off her back and put it in the boot, but unlike a real gentleman I had already stripped my backpack off and was sitting in the vehicle.

So here we are with an apparantly trustworthy driver, reccomended by the chaps at the backpackers (remember 1990 tozota corolla many dents) and we're off into a town that has a taxi war and massive homicide rate, especially for us of a pale complexion (i dunno if thats true but it gives you an idea of the nerves one carries...) Thats ok, I told Melissah I was dripping with optimism to counter balance melissah's pale pessimistic "we're going to die" attitude, he comes reccomended by the backpackers. You'd think we would have learnt by now. For the next forty minutes we drove like a car possesed through jo'burg, apparantly pedistrians are fair target and the commuters talk to each other via a complicated language of honks and expletives. Our taxi driver was also some kind of Jedi master for not once, and i mean once did he look at what was happenening in front of the vehicle. If you have seen the film clip to Jarvis Cockers "don't let him waste your time!" where Jarvis spends his whole time looking backwards at the passengers instead of driving ... we'll it's like that except it's terrifying when its not on rage at two o'clock in the morning but in real time with you... Trust me... Anyway, he hit nothing, killed no one, got us to our destination 5 stars, very posh, in one piece...

I don't remember agreeing to have him drive us around the next day but he did wave his hand infront of melissahs face and said mmmmm pick you up i will.... mmmm tomorrow at 8... to the museum and airport you will go... you seek yoda... (I may have just breached copyright.. but if anyone asks its fan fiction.) So he drove us around the whole next day, took us the tourist way to the airport this costs double and terrified the pants of Steve and Eve when the whole drive he was poking Steve in the chest muttering stuff about 4 wheel drives and motorways... Anyhoo.....

(Melissah has taken over the keyboard - time for a concise version of events, Al will take over later!)

We spent a day in Johannesburg, in a five star hotel, which was a nice change from the two weeks of camping! I don't think that either of us really felt safe in Johannesburg, something to do with the nine foot fences around every property with the electric fence on top of that and the giant metal spokes on top of that. We took a taxi ride through Sandhurst, the ritziest suburb in Jo'burg and couldn't believe our eyes. It's a gated suburb, meaning there's a MASSIVE fence around the whole suburb with a gate that's closed between 7pm and 5am. There were security guards at the gate and one at each corner of the suburb in full camouflage gear. The ones at the gate were all holding AK47's and had amo vests on. I've never seen anything like it. Even with all this, according to the newspapers, Sandhurst still has the highest rate of armed robbery in all of Johannesburg.

We only spent a day in Johannesburg, so the only thing we really had time to do was visit the apartheid museum. The museum was not quite what we expected. A lot less "in your face" than we thought it would be. What it was, was a really fantastic unbiased view of apartheid. There was a lot of explanation as to why the whites bought it in and the affects through the ages. I can't say that either Al or I really learnt anything new that changed our opinions, but it was definitely worth the trip. We were really disappointed that we didn't get time to do a tour of Soweto - but there's always next time!!

From Johannesburg we already had flights booked to head down to Cape Town. In the end we were quite disappointed that we pre booked flights, because instead of Cape Town, we would have preferred to go back to the regional areas, where there's so much culture and so many animals and landscapes to be seen! Anyhow, with our flights and accommodation pre booked and paid for we had no choice!

After 12 full on days of travelling around Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa, the relaxation in Cape Town was exactly what we needed. I don't know that I'd ever go back to Cape Town, it really just felt like an Aussie beach town (just less safe) and with the Billabong Surfing Pro just up the road and all the surfers around, it really felt way too much like home! By the end of it, we were counting down the days to Europe! We pretty much spent the whole time just walking around the waterfront at Cape Town (which is really just a nice marina), did a tour across to Robben Island and then up to Table Mountain. Really, there isn't much else to see in Cape Town that we hadn't already seen either in Australia or on our tour!

Robben Island
Robben Island holds the prison that Nelson Mandela was kept in for 18 of his 27 years in prison. We took a tour around the Island and learnt about its history and how it's always been an island of banishment, from the lepers through to thousands of political prisoners across the ages. Interestingly, the island is absolutely covered in rabbits and eucalyptus trees from the nice Australians ... to say the least, they're not very happy with us!

We were supposed to spend the afternoon with an ex political prisoner, but they were flat out with school holidays and didn't have enough (!!) but instead we had a guy who lives on the island (i think he started and runs the whole thing) and is collating all of the stories from the apartheid political prisoners, he has met and spent time with so many of the people that we would all know from talks of apartheid and had so much to tell us. We saw the cell that Nelson Mandela was kept in and heard stories from working in the limestone mines to priests smuggling them in the local papers. This was a real eye opener for us, and while we didn't have an ex prisioner talk to us, there were enough of them around, that you got the understanding that this wasn't just a story, this happened to real people. Also, everyone that has been employed on the island from the cleaners to the security gaurds are people of the generation that missed out on education becuase they were fighting for freedom. This was definitely the most worthwhile thing that Al and I did while in Africa.

It began in Africa ... ca ... ca ... ca

2007-07-15T00:29:00.000+10:00

Like all good stories, our initial sojourn through Africa is divided into a trilogy (I can't see myself gonig all "Die Hard 4" or including any shit prequals) So .. the first part will be engaging, entertaining, funny, original and generally a five star rated blog. The second will be seen as derivative - a rehash of the first, people will only read it out of obligation to the first (think Lord of the Rings 2). The third part will bring everyone back in numbers, anticipating a return to form, unfortunately we're only doing a third to fulfil contractual obligations, not for any artistic merit.

Just ask me about poo, and other related stories ...

2007-07-14T23:35:00.000+10:00

THE OVERLAND "ADVENTURE"

Our 11 day Overland Tour began in Vic Falls (the Zimbabwe side) and took us through Botswana and South Africa. Our group included 13 Australians and 2 poor Brits that got stuck with us!!

The ATC truck - our home for 11 days, and Dumi, our very patient "Truck" driver for that time!

Zimbabwe and Vic Falls

So anyway i got a little distracted there. The story begins in Vic Falls (I've skipped the airport scenes, the duty free, delayed flights, shit seats and meals and the overall tiredness that goes with intenational travel. Everyone has a similar story so just retell yours for good measure!).

However, the Vic Falls airport does rate a mention, where upon arriving and paying the US 40 dollar entry fee (more exclusive than night clubs in Melbourne is Zimbabwe) we strolled passed a sleeping customs official to find our bags not on a carousel, but sprawled across the airport floor. I am generally a reasonable guy, but climbing over 50 suitcases to get to my backpack after 25 hours of flying i can get a little narky! So Vic Falls "international airport" is the size of the Whyalla airport and not in that good of condition. Subsequently we would have left pretty quickly but nothing in Africa moves that fast and we had to wait for fellow passengers to log their missing luggage, so our transfer guy could leave.

We passed the time staring at the ceiling and inventing new games, my personal favourite was "How many AK-47's can you spot?" while Mel played a lot of "Don't make eye contact so they wont shoot us!". Seriously though there was a lot of weaponary in the airport and it wasn't until we hit Jo'burg that we saw any more, but thats covered later!

When we eventually left the airport we began to remember the words of the Smart Traveller website which when boiled down basically says to you "Please don't go. If you like waterfalls and wildlife, have you been to the Northen Territory?", so we were a little edgy! "Next stop backpackers" was the thought that we and our fellow passengers had running through our minds... Not to be... First stop was in the middle of nowhere, the driver just decides to pull over at 80km/h into an area where the locals were just milling about, next to a sign that says "no stopping". Turns out they weren't there to rob us blind and sell my kidney on the black market, but a government ministers convoy was driving past and we had to pull over. Thankyou smart traveller - you owe me a pair of new jocks.

Once we took off again and my heart rate slowed from obese american school boy to mildly unfit 26 year old, next stop back packers........ Guess what thats not what happened. Apparantly next stop on our "airport to backpackers transfer" was a tiny little room with six chairs against a wall, "oh" i thought to myself "this is what smart traveller was talking about where western tourists go to die!". We sit down, the driver leaves in his car with our bags in it (and all of our possessions for the next 6 months) - Melissah's giving me a look that says "told you we should have listened to that website" I was trying not to return that look with one that said "1 day in and we lose all our bags and are probably going to die... We're fucked" instead i smiled. Turns out smart traveller was mind fucking us (thats for james king) - they were part of the tour company and were just selling us white water rafting, bungee jumping etc etc. Our van returned, they took us to the back packers. Smart Traveller your black listed.

So I could wax lyrical about the majesty of the falls, the white water rafting, the wildlife just hanging out in town, the happy people and the cool guys we met or changing US $10 and becoming a millionaire (literally) but i'm not. I am going to tell you about my taxi driver. Mel, two aussie birds that i can't remember the names of and myself were heading home for a night cap, so we were waiting for a taxi at the local camp. The cab arrived with a backfire that woke the neighbours and sent security guards scrambling for their guns. When the security guards lowered their weapons we all piled into the car through its one working door and before anyone had time to sit down properly, we were off. Hands launched sideways looking for a hand rail, door handle or seatbelt -not to anyones surprise they had all been removed / fallen off / were broken. That should have been the end of it there especially when 25m down the road Graham (not his real name but you wont attach to the character if he doesn't have a name and i can't remeber his actual name) pulled over, opened the boot and started tightening the lid of his 2lt coke bottles full of petrol. When Graham jumped back in he said there was an elephant wandering through the village destroying houses like godzilla, it was probably the petrol fumes spewing into the car but it seemed like good idea to all of us to try and find this elephant.

Before too long we were driving around the dark bushes of Vic Falls town using the one working headlight to spot a 4 tonne creature with a boot full of what i like to call flaming death. Someone (I don't know who, but they have a sick sense of humour) said this is probably what Ivan Milat did in Australia - took people looking for Kangaroos. Deathly silence except for one person snickering and then everyone had the sudden need to be at home... good news for me cos i am too pretty to die in a flaming car crash. Upon arriving at the backpackers we bypassed the bar and went to the grass outside trying to breathe in fresh air and heal our petrol soaked airways.

The following morning we met the rest of the cast, left Vic Falls, nearly ran over an endagered African Wild Dog and breathed a sigh of releif crossing the border into Botswana.

Vic Falls - "The smoke that thunders" ... amazing ... so undescribable that Al decided not to mention it, but we did spend an afternoon at Vic Falls National Park marvelling at the beauty (and dodging the many wild baboons that also choose to walk the paths). Paul - you would be impressed, there were no McDonalds or Hotels in sight!!

Chobe National Park

So we skipped some down time, some early morning starts, a bizarre practice called flapping after every meal (this isn't as fun as it sounds) and bonding with our with our co-tennants on the big yellow taxi.

We arrive at Chobe National park for a jaunt around the grounds in an open top jeep. Seems fairly straight forward to me, keep your arms and legs in the vehicle while its cruising around and they'll let you out so you can get a view of the animals in the distance. Turns out there are hungry kitty cats that have a taste for human not tins of tuna (i had tuna for lunch that day so i was doubly screwed) so you cant alight from the vehicle and your tray's have to be in the locked position the whole journey! I thought Africa would be lax on these types of laws as they are with other things like keeping time, moving quickly and getting things done turns out getting a whitey killed brings a lot of people looking at places so they try not to let it happen. At least we have a decent zoom on the camera so we would be able to see the animals at a distance and when our first stop was looking at a couple of black blobs on the horizon and getting told they were buffalo I was beggining to question how many pula this was costing me.

Then an elephant nearly trod on the bonnet of the car and i couldn't pull the zoom of the camera back far enough so it just looks like a photo of a grey wall! It was worth the pula. No kitty cats here though, even with me banging a tin of tuna with a fork as we drove along. The impala's and wilderbeest were giving me look that kind of said "Are you serious? Those kitty cats eat us. What are you trying to do?" but all i could think of was the photo op!!

I felt like a member of the paparazzi chasing the newest white trash celebrity around looking for them to pick on a poor kid or mistreat a $100 note in a rolled up kind of way. After this we went for a cruise on the River Chobe. It was beautiful, it was magnificent, it was photo op city. I invented a game which was called "How many tourisits are prepared to climb over the top of an elderly person in the hope of getting that one Kodak moment?" turns out the answer to this is all of them. I am surprised we didn't capsize the boat with everyone rushing from one side to the other having wet dreams about the slide show they are going to bore everyone with when they get home (we saved you some pain, ours are in the photo albumn on the side). Then came the sunset. Africa doesn't do things by half, and in terms photgenic sunsets they have one a day, guaranteed.

It was at this point i decided to black list something else, the sound of a digital camera beeping as it focuses. It's almost as bad as a camera rewinding while on a walking safari and you're all being quiet (digital camera time Matt!). The sound of fifty beeps at differing intervals interrupting your queit beer on the river, steals a little from the moment. Still worth it though sometimes instead of seeing the glass half full or empty i notice the glass is a little dirty with a crack on the rim and someone hasn't put a coaster under it.. But it was tops.

Giraffe casually strolling across the road in front of our jeep!

We thought he was upset with us, but if you look closely, it turns out that there's a croc at his feet!

Okavango Delta

So after what seems like thirty days in the wild, hallucinating thanks to the sleep deprivation, shaking uncontrollably due to the withdrawels from coffee (that's me) and prepared to suffocate someone in their sleep if it means some hot water for a shower (most other people), we arrived at the Okavango Delta.

Upon arriving, we should have had a relaxing three days, getting poled out into the woods in a hollowed out tree, camping, drinking, telling scary stories, getting the guns out for a tan and generally Peter Pan style happy thoughts. The rules are simple - take a warm change of clothes, one sleeping bag and one sleeping mat and enough to drink. It was cold so everyone had their warm change of clothes on. This gets better ... bear with it. In the hollowed out tree they put your sleeping bag and sleeping mat to sit on so you don't get a prickle on your arse and your bag and you sit in, then your poler pushes you along (not singing ala venice but a similar theory). This is where it gets funny to me and makes Mel mad. The ONE mokoro (as the trees are called when they are hollowed out), the ONE mokoro that fills with water soaking the warm clothes and sleeping mat, saturating the only pair of jocks/knickers that came for the ride is ours. Oh happy days, the water was physically boiling as it sat around melissah's waist ... seeing the lighter side of life can be life threatening sometimes! Since i stopped work, I've gained a few kilo's but to sink a bloody boat? I ain't that fat yet!!

When we arrived at our campgrounds (after changing mokoros) set up our tents, hung our clothes up to dry, hung the sleeping mats out to dry and hung the sleeping bags out to dry, we were finally ready to relax and enjoy the sunset.... Well kind of. They took us for a walk out the back of the camp. About twenty metres from the back of the camp they showed us elephant footprints, the girls (not me i never worry about anything, i am big and strong after all) a tad worried asked are there any animals on these walks?
Yes was the reply.
Do we see these animals on the walks ?
Yes ... even lions and leopards...
At this stage people are looking at the mokoros trying to work out if they could get back to the trucks.
What do we do if we see these animals?
Run down wind and try and keep up with me is what Nelson the guide replied, or if its a leopard "just don't look him in the eye and a lion .. well give him a look of dismissal". I think the setswana to english is mis interpriting some clicks somewhere because giving a lion a look dismissal rather than a look of abject terror (also known as the "I just crapped my pants") is the last thing i would do. I reckon the guides want you to look at the lion so they have time to run, don't look at the leopard so you cant see it coming and they have time to run. There was some other dicey advice involving elephants, buffalo and rhinos but it all boiled down to the same thing ... you get eaten before them. These guys have it sorted, whatever happens you die first.

So when we coaxed the girls out the trees (they went up there when one of the guides said you have to run every walk.. that whole setswana to english thing again) we finally strolled around. Check the hippo on the right over there for some photos. Saw elephants and some zebras and some wilderbeest. The wilderbeest were just standing around in some long grass chewing the fat, standing very still and in my mind all i could think was "i've watched national geographic channel, in 20 seconds one of these guys is just gonna get ripped down into the long grass, children of the corn style. Another wilderbeest is gonna look over and go "Has anyone seen Ken? Anyone? No? Ok" and they'll all take off like bats out of hell. "RIP ken." This didn't happen but it would have been sweet if it did.

So on day 2, I tried to push one of the mokoros around. White guys can't jump or pole is the updated version of that saying. At least i didn't sink it although i did my best. That night all rugged up beers in hand we went out on the mokoros again to find a nice place to watch the sunset. All the luggage was out of the mokoro, just Mel and I and a new Mokorro, you would think we would be sweet. You would be wrong. We sunk another one and had to get another boat. 2 from 2. We are starting to get a complex about our weight! Some of the photos were worth the wet arse, some not so much. Mel dominated the African "what beast sir?" game around the campfire that night. I sucked.

Al and Zeph attempting to pole a Mokorro

Mel's Note: Al has neglected to mention that this night around the campfire is probably our most memorable and best night in Africa. The polers (all local guys) spent the night singing us local African tunes ... including crowd involvement ... even the local's had to take a step back and admire Matt "dancing to the African drums" and then played African and Australian games around the campfire.

Day 3 we packed up. Alls well that ends well. Hugs all round, pack up the tents, the bags, the mats. Breakfast goes down well the sun is shining, birds singing aint nothing gonna break my stride (as the song goes). Load into another new mokoro. Get 5 minutes down delta, things are going swimmingly. What did you just say? Swimmingly? Damn right. 3 from 3. The fucken thing fills with water again. Thank god the poor poler couldn't see our (Mel's) face, little Alaska would have turned to stone. Overall, i rated it. Because if we didn't sink the boats, we'd have nothing to talk about except whateveryone else talks about, it was pretty, it was beautiful, blah blah.. Still would do it again.

Al's fancy shot of Steve, Eve and Lee in their Mokorro

Krueger National Park

The "Big 5" - aptly named not because they are the most dangerous animals in Africa, but when hunting, if you wound an animal, these are the 5 most likely to kill you for a bad shot. (yes mum, we took all of these photo's ourselves.)

Tales to come ...

A hippo ate my baby ...

2007-07-03T23:17:00.000+10:00

Just a quick update that we made it alive and well to Africa!!

We've been here 3 and a half short days and have already white water rafted down the Zambezi, seen Vic Falls, a tonne of elephants, hippos and water buffalos, almost run over a giraffe in the middle of the road this morning and had a rare sighting of African Painted Dogs. We've also both literally been scammed out of our shoes by some locals! (its a long story that doesn't translate well to text)

We're currently in the middle of Botswana, and tomorrow will start our 3 day trip in the Mokorros down the Okvango Delta - both can't wait.

A proper update and photos to come when we have a decent connection and amount of time!!

No turning back ...

2007-02-17T21:24:00.000+11:00

So it's official ... we're really heading off!! Here's what we're up to from July to December this year.

TRAVEL ITINERARY

Fri 29 Jun 07 Melbourne to Johannesburg

Wed 18 Jul 07 Johannesburg to London

Thu 03 Jan 08 London to Melbourne

AFRICAN TOUR

11 day Southern Adventure

VICTORIA FALLS TO JOHANNESBURG
Travelling from one marvel to another, this safari promises to keep you visually and culturally entertained From the majestic Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe we enter Botswana. Botswana is a wilderness of dessert, delta and salt pans, all your senses will be kept alert, from the banks of the Chobe River to the vast inland Okavango delta. Botswana, rich in mineral wealth is Africa’s success story, being host to three of the world’s richest diamond mines. Finishing off this short yet diverse safari we take in the world renowned Kruger National Park before finishing in the commercial hub of Johannesburg.

DAYS 01: Victoria Falls
The Victoria Falls constitutes one of the most spectacular natural wonders of the world. 1700 metres wide and around 100 metres high, this is the world's largest sheet of falling water and a memorable sight of any African Safari. All year round, flights can be taken in a fixed wing aircraft, micro lights, ultra lights or helicopters. On the ground, the fall can be seen from the Victoria Falls National Park with its many viewing points, or from the Zambian side. Each offers fantastic photographic opportunities.
White water rafting on the Zambezi is considered to be world class. Besides the excitement of the Grade 5 rapids, there are the "floats" where there is time to admire the scenic cliffs and the occasional wildlife on the riverbanks. Bungi jumping enthusiasts can take the plunge from the Zambezi Bridge, which connects Zimbabwe and Zambia. There is also the option abseil in the Batoka Gorge, neither activities are for the feint hearted!

DAYS 02: Victoria Falls to Kasane
This morning we depart Victoria Falls after breakfast and cross the border of into Botswana where we set up camps for the night near the Chobe National Park. Chobe is one of Botswana’s premier game parks, renowned for the large herds of elephant around the Chobe River. Late afternoon we take a boat cruise along the Chobe River in search of elephant, hippo and many bird species which can be viewed from the boat while we watch the renowned Chobe sunset.

DAYS 03: Kasane to Maun
An early morning start sees us travelling in southwesterly direction to Maun, our base camp before we start our Optional Excursion into the Okavango Delta. Today is a long days drive with lunch on the roadside.

DAY 04: Okavango Delta
The Delta is a huge expanse of water, which has travelled from the Angolan highlands, spreading out to form the largest inland Delta in the World. Studded with exotic islands, the Delta is renowned for its incredible variety of bird life as well as many other animals unique to Southern Africa. Here you have the opportunity to partake in the optional 3 day / 2 night excursions into the Delta. In this excursion we travel approximately 1-2 hours north to the Mokoro poler’s station. From there we board Mokoro’s, the local dug out canoes, which are poled by local guides through the winding waterways. Your guides will select a place to set up camp. An afternoon game walk will allow you to experience the Delta wilderness.

DAY 05: Okavango Delta
A day of rest, relaxation and Delta experiences await. Today you will have the opportunity to partake in a number of activities including game walks, mokoro cruises, swimming and even a chance to try your hand at poling your own mokoro!

DAY 06: Okavango Delta to Maun
There is a final opportunity for a morning game walk before packing up camp and setting off back to Maun. After arriving back in the early afternoon you have the opportunity to complete your picture of the Okavango Delta by taking an optional sunset scenic flight over the Delta region.

DAY 07: Maun to Francistown
Today is a long days drive to Francistown. Francistown was originally a gold-mining centre, but now days the town has expanded into a retail and wholesale shopping mecca. We stock up with supplies for the next few days.

DAYS 08: Francistown to Polokwane
An early start sees us crossing the border into South Africa. We drive through the North Province of the country crossing highveld and lowveld. We will overnight at a campsite for the night before nearing the Kruger National Park tomorrow.

DAY 09: Polokwane to Hazyview
We head towards the very famous Kruger National Park. Our camp for the next two nights is 8km from Kruger Parks Numbi Gate. Spoilt with a swimming pool and good hot showers we spend the evening around the campfire anticipating our game drive tomorrow.

DAY 10: Hazyview
Today we explore the wonders of Kruger National Park. This is one of the most famous wildlife parks in the world. Covering an area of 21, 497 sq km – 60km wide and over 350km long, this conservation area has more than 500 bird species, 114 reptile, 49 fish, 33 amphibians, 146 mammals and over 23000 plant species have been recorded. Today is spent in the Park on a full day game drive to see how many of the species can be found. Tonight there is an option of a night drive in the park

DAY 11: Hazyview to Johannesburg
After a delicious campfire breakfast we start our journey to Johannesburg, we drive once again through beautiful ever changing scenery before entering the bustling city where our trip will finish.